Humans let down Google Assistant in Pixel smartphone ad in India
Humans are letting down the super smart Google Assistant.
It’s a big day for Google in India. The company is launching its Pixel smartphones in the country today. On the occasion, Google ran a two-page ad on Times of India newspaper, showcasing the power of one of Pixel's most interesting features, Google Assistant. Its only sin: the almighty artificial intelligence bot has got the facts wrong.
In the ad, Google Assistant is shown responding to a user’s query who wants to know about their flight to London. The plane, the United Airlines Flight 83, is shown to depart from DEL (New Delhi) and reach LHR (London Heathrow, United Kingdom). Which seems about fine except that United Airlines Flight 83 doesn’t actually fly to LHR. The plane instead flies to EWR (Newark Liberty International Airport).
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In Google’s defense, its Assistant probably knows all of this and it’s likely the fault of people who were tasked for this ad. We checked Google Assistant on Allo for United Airlines Flight 83 and it did show its destination to be EWR and not LHR.
It also doesn’t help that Times of India is the country’s most circulated English newspaper and people are going to notice it. Oh well.
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Google Assistant is the headline feature of new Pixel smartphones. The feature uses artificial intelligence to understand what users are saying and responds conversationally with most relevant and accurate answers. Google Assistant will be exclusive to Google's Pixel smartphones -- Pixel and Pixel XL -- until next year.
