Google unlists misleading Gemini video

Google has unlisted an impressive Gemini demo video it posted last December that seemed remarkably conversational. The BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD), an ad industry watchdog, inquired whether the video “accurately depicts the performance of Gemini in responding to user voice and video prompts.”

Google chose to end the inquiry by ending its promotion of the video that showed Gemini quickly responding to various spoken prompts, such as identifying parts of drawings and creating a geography game on the fly.

Buried in the description was a disclaimer indicating the demo might not be as good as it seemed: “For the purposes of this demo, latency has been reduced and Gemini outputs have been shortened for brevity.”

Another note near the beginning of the video said, “Sequences shortened throughout.” And Google DeepMind’s Oriol Vinyals clarified that the video illustrated what “the multimodal user experiences built with Gemini could look like.”

Google’s response to the inquiry includes unlisting the video and keeping up a related blog post about how it was made.

Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The NAD’s press release includes a Google statement that says it’s “pleased to accept NAD’s resolution of this matter.”