“Let’s see if the demo spirits are with us today.”
Failure to Launch
Google got egg on its face Tuesday when the live demo of its AI mobile app repeatedly failed in front of a large audience.
At this week’s Made by Google event, presenters attempted to make the mobile version of Google’s Gemini AI perform what seemed like a simple task, CNET reports, but it failed twice before finally working on the third attempt.
“Oh, looks like we have a little demo issue,” said Google’s senior director of product David Citron after he used a smartphone to scan a Sabrina Carpenter concert poster and tasked Gemini to analyze whether he would be free to watch her perform for a future San Francisco date.
An awkward silence fell over the crowd as Citron tried to coax Gemini to spit out the right information.
“Let’s see if the demo spirits are with us today,” he said, before getting an error message on the screen. “Uh, oh. Looks like they are not with us.”
Finally, after what seemed like an interminable wait, Gemini gave Citron the information he wanted on the third try, eliciting a burst of applause from the relieved crowd.
AI Stumbles
Thankfully, that incident seemed to be the only hiccup at the event — but the lack of response from Gemini must be concerning to Google higher-ups.
Gemini has been plagued with problems ever since the tech giant introduced it to the public last year as its answer to rival AI tech such as Microsoft’s Copilot or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Earlier this year, Gemini was caught spitting out nonsensical AI-generated images of racial minorities in Nazi uniforms, among other weird images. It was also caught generating erroneous advice such as telling people to open up the back of a film camera to fix a jammed roll of film, which would ruin the pictures inside.
Google was also caught faking a Gemini AI demo last year.
Beyond Gemini, Google has had trouble with its AI Overviews, the new AI-generated summary feature that appears in some search queries. Users noticed the feature churns out a lot of incorrect information, including telling them to put glue on pizza so the cheese would not slide off.
In light of Tuesday’s demo, Google is still clearly trying to make its unpolished AI tech work, but it just keeps tripping over its own feet.
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