• by Tanya Gazdik , August 4, 2024

If you want to see the “Dear Sydney” Google spot that promotes using the Gemini AI chatbot to write fan letters, you’ll have to look online. 

“While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we have decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation,” a Google spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter and other media outlets in a statement. 

The ad was meant to “show how the Gemini app can provide a starting point, thought starter, or early draft for someone looking for ideas for their writing.”

The ad, created by Google's in-house creative team according to Variety, features a father helping his daughter write a letter to Olympian Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

“The ad is still viewable on YouTube but has been taken off the airwaves, where it was repeatedly shown in the first week of the Games,” according to CNBC. 

Longtime Detroit newspaper wordsmith Neal Rubin had some choice criticism for the technology brand, calling them the “big Olympic loser” and questioning if they really tested the spot before airing it. 

“It’s unclear who the test audiences were, but they likely did not include parents, children, or anyone who had once been a child,” Rubin writes in the Detroit Free Press. “So: probably bots.”

In the commercial, the daughter decides to write her idol a letter.

“I’m pretty good with words,” her dad says, “but this has to be just right.”

“That means he sits down with his little darling and they compose the letter together, right? Or he buys her some stationery? Or a dictionary?” asks Rubin. “Nah. He goes online and calls up Gemini AI. There’s no purer form of adoration than the love of a child, so what the heck. Let’s fob it off on a machine.”

Online commentators on X, Reddit and other platforms criticized the spot, noting how it seemed to discourage creative and thoughtful writing in favor of an automated alternative. Ars Technica summarized some of the critics. 

“This ad makes me want to throw a sledgehammer into the television every time I see it,” wrote The Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri.

MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan concurred with the critics. 

“I love technology, but I'm not sure my mother would have approved of me using something like this to write the zillions of thank you notes and letters of appreciation I labored over during my lifetime,” Sullivan writes in Performance Marketing Insider. “Technological advancements have put doubt in people's minds, making it difficult for some to accept or believe what they are capable of doing or not doing on their own.”

This isn’t be the first time big tech “stepped in it while trying to showcase the power of AI in an ad,” according to The Verge. 

A few months ago, Apple caught flack for its “Crush” ad, which showed a hydraulic press squishing creative tools into a shiny new iPad.

“People were understandably upset by the imagery, especially as AI sparks fears that technology will steal and replace the work of writers, artists, performers, and other creatives,” per The Verge. “At the heart of the issue, tech companies still struggle to read the room with regard to AI.  Generally speaking, humans crave authentic connection. What makes a fan letter precious is the knowledge that someone took time out of their busy life to express what you or your work means to them. It’s hard to imagine that McLaughlin-Levrone wouldn’t be moved by a rambling letter from a child with the occasional typo or awkward grammar.”