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What Does The General Public Think Of AI? (Part Two)
A minor anecdote from a recent holiday
I find the split between the tech press/commentary sector and the general public fascinating. There are times yes, when the nerds (that is, me and possibly you) do have a point. But the majority of the time there is a huge amount of cognitive dissonance between industry chatter and public opinion.
On a recent family vacation I was watching TV with my father and a commercial came on for Samsung Galaxy phones. You’ve probably seen it: clumsy Gen-Z-er accidentally spills sugar into his Pasta sauce. In a moment of panic he asks Google Gemini what to do. It scans his kitchen counter for ingredients and recommends a recipe for weird cookies.
The ad serves to illustrate how clever Gemini’s vision is at object recognition. Beyond the internal illogic of making cookies for Dinner, taken in a silo it seems rather clever. “Look how far AI has come!” etc. After the commercial played through my father, aged 66 then comments about how dumb the kid was and how he should have just spooned out the sugar! Anything left in would just add a nice sweetness to the sauce.
In one sentence my father had unwittingly exposed everything wrong with not just the commercial but the public perception of AI itself. After all, if it can’t recommend a simple solution like…
