Just days after its launch, Google is already facing accusations of exaggerating the capabilities of Gemini, the company’s most powerful AI model to date.
According to a Bloomberg op-ed, a demo video that the Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) company played at the launch event earlier this week misrepresented Gemini’s capabilities.
In the video, Gemini seemingly responds in real-time to a user verbally asking it to identify a drawing, then narrates what happens as the user sketches a duck. Later, it successfully plays a variant of three-card monte by tracking a paper ball in a cup.
However, the Bloomberg columnist pointed to a caveat appended to the video on YouTube, reading, “For the purposes of this demo, latency has been reduced, and Gemini outputs have been shortened for brevity.”
When asked about this, Google acknowledged that the demo wasn’t conducted in real-time with verbal prompts. Instead, Gemini was given still images taken from the footage and text prompts to respond to.
This is far from the first time a company has put its thumb on the scale to avoid the risk of technical difficulties with a demo video or presentation. But in this case, Google is seemingly dramatically overstating Gemini’s functionality and understanding.
Project Ellmann
Meanwhile, Google is exploring a project in which Gemini could take a user’s photos, Google searches and other content and turn that into a comprehensive story of that user’s life, according to reports.
Project Ellmann, named for the biographer Richard David Ellmann would use a large language model to create a personalized chatbot based on a user’s data that could answer questions about their life.
According to a Google presentation, the goal is to become “Your life story teller” and “answer previously impossible questions.”
“We can’t answer tough questions or tell good stories without a bird’s-eye view of your life,” one description reads alongside a photo of a small boy playing with a dog in the dirt,” the presentation said, according to reports.
“We trawl through your photos, looking at their tags and locations to identify a meaningful moment. When we step back and understand your life in its entirety, your overarching story becomes clear.”
It is unclear, however, if and through what platform Google would launch such a project.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @andrew_kessel