Back in the colder months of early 2025, Google ran an ad for Gemini A.I. during the Super Bowl. But there was not only a factual error in this ad, but even some apparent deception, in that what was made to look like Gemini’s output was actually human-generated writing.
The Five Most-Key Takeaways from This Blog Post
- The factual error: A block of written content included in the commercial included the claim that Gouda makes up 50 to 60 percent of the world’s cheese consumption. This, in fact, is untrue. (Squint and you’ll notice at the bottom of the Gemini output’s text box a claim that the output is “creative writing” and should not necessarily be seen as factual.)
- The apparent deception: The factually incorrect text presented as generated by Google Gemini was in fact already on the web since at least August 2020, before Google Gemini was available to business owners to generate content.
- Moreover, Google itself must’ve broke out in sweats after realizing the error, and so the factual error has since been scrubbed from the Super Bowl ad that you can watch on YouTube.
- Also noteworthy in that ad is how little of Gemini was actually shown during the ad—roughly a third of the ad, the remaining two-thirds of which are B-roll. The shown output, which is presumably the central product of interest that the ad ought to highlight, is really only on screen for around two seconds, certainly not long enough for Super Bowl viewers to actually read—and evaluate—the output.
- Overall, business owners should be aware that tech companies are asking business owners to put a lot of confidence right now in a technology that the tech companies have yet to perfect.
The Significance for Business Owners
Considering the amount of money that major tech companies are pouring into A.I. development, it would not be an exaggeration to say that companies like Google are essentially betting the company on this technology.
These massive bets on A.I., in turn, drives an initiative in these companies to get the public to put its confidence in what the tech industry is pouring its money into.
Naturally, one way to do this is by using advertising to sell people on not just the technology, but the idea that this technology can be so beneficial that it can be worth integrating into your daily life.
Something that the tech world does seem widely successful in selling people on is that the technology will one day be powerful and capable beyond our wildest dreams.
You see confidence in this idea in the anti-A.I. crowd that has reservations about the impact that this technology will have on our lives. You also see it in the pro-A.I. crowd that sees this technology as the key to solving many of humanity’s toughest problems.
A great ad placement to make such an impression is during the Super Bowl. As many Americans know, the Super Bowl’s rituals extend beyond just the field, as to the advertising industry it represents a sort of calculated Bacchanalia of weirder, wilder, more-expensive and star-studded commercials.
What Should Business Owners Think of Google’s Super Bowl Ad’s Mistakes?
A near-constant refrain you hear from those in the tech world in the face of A.I.’s mistakes is some variant of “Just wait, it’ll get so much better you won’t even believe it!”
In certain respects, this is probably true. But problems like hallucination, sycophancy, and an overall lack of human common sense are some of the persistent and perhaps ineradicable issues that A.I. continues to have.
What’s especially important here is that these tech companies are encouraging business owners to start using A.I. now, which, you know, is why Google ran a Super Bowl ad claiming that millions of small businesses are using A.I. in Google Workspace.
So, why should business owners place their confidence in a technology that apparently the company itself wasn’t ready to show actual output from in a high-profile Super Bowl Ad?
Obviously, anyone who is familiar with using this technology knows that it can be quite good, but more from a first-draft sense, at least with the writing.
The writer of this blog post, for instance, has experimented in ChatGPT enough to see multiple instances of fake customer testimonials, unreal products pitched as available to purchase, and too many fudged facts to name.
The more one uses the technology, the more one sees the necessity for humans to evaluate its output for factual accuracy, as well as just make sure it doesn’t sound awkward.
The Last (But Not Least) Key Takeaway from This Blog Post
Tech companies marketing campaigns for A.I. products invite business owners to place a high degree of confidence in the capabilities of the products. More realistically, business owners should be aware of the limits and inclinations to error that still plagues this technology, update after update, so that they can get the best use out of it.
Other Great GO AI Blog Posts
GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole.
On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles:
- For Businesses and Other Organizations, What Makes a Successful Chatbot?
- IBM Watson vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: How Will Each Affect Search Engines?
- Using A.I. to Find Resources for Business Owners
- How Would Restricting Open-Source A.I. Affect Business Owners?
- The EU’s A.I. Act Has Become Law: The Implications for Business Owners (Especially American)
In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.
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