Letter writing is a skill many people begin learning in elementary school, but the potential threat artificial intelligence poses to putting pen to paper is now in the spotlight, thanks to a recent TV commercial.
The Google advertisement, which aired during the 2024 Summer Olympics, showed a father encouraging his daughter to use the company’s Gemini artificial intelligence feature to help her write a letter to her favorite U.S. track athlete, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.
The spot, titled “Dear Sydney,” sparked a barrage of online chatter about how learning to write a letter with one’s own thoughts and feelings rather than using artificial intelligence is crucial to develop a child’s creativity.
Google pulled the commercial after the backlash.
“AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it,” Google wrote in a statement.
“Our goal was to create an authentic story celebrating Team USA. It showcases a real-life track enthusiast and her father, and aims 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 statement reads.
As more companies offer artificial intelligence to make tasks easier, the issue of individual creativity continues to be a sticking point.
“I flatly reject the future that Google is advertising,” Shelly Palmer, professor of advanced media at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, wrote in a blog post.
“I want to live in a culturally diverse world where billions of individuals use AI to amplify their human skills, not in a world where we are used by AI pretending to be human.”
In a post on the Bluesky social media app, Linda Holmes, a novelist and podcaster, said there are special circumstances where AI is helpful but asked, “Who wants an AI-written fan letter?”
“A fan letter is a great way for a kid to learn to write. If you encourage kids to run to AI to spit out words because their writing isn’t great yet, how are they supposed to learn?” she wrote.
