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Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

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Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#621

Post by mvdtnz »

GolfPopper wrote: post #536
mvdtnz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody really knows what the designers were thinking, which I do not mean as sarcasm, I mean it straight. History lost that information. My understanding of QWERTY layout is that it was designed so that characters frequently used in succession should not be able to be typed in rapid succession, so that typewriter hammers had less chance of colliding. Or is this an urban myth?

My understanding (which is my recollections of a dive into typewriter history decades ago) is that avoiding typebar collisions was a real concern, but that the general consensus was that the exact final layout was strongly influenced by allowing salesmen to quickly type out 'typewriter' on the top row of letters.

I love this explanation.

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#622

Post by turquoisevar »

kccqzy wrote: post #553

While this might just be a bit of bad PR now, it will eventually be a nothing burger. Remember the original debut of Apple's Siri for which Apple also put out a promotional demo with greatly exaggerated functionality? People even sued Apple and they lost. As much as I hate it, this is absolutely fine by our society's standards. https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2014/02/14/apple_prevails_in...

There's a vast difference between advertising a product, slightly shortening the sequences and, cutting out failed prompts, and completely misrepresenting the product at hand to a degree that the depiction doesn't resemble the product at all[0].

The former is considered Puffery[1] and is completely legal, and the latter is straight up lying.

0: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/07/googles-best-gemini-demo-w...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#623

Post by turquoisevar »

jonplackett wrote: post #402

OK I get that everyone’s hype sensitive and I absolutely remain to be convinced on Gemini’s actual ability BUT The fact this wasn’t realtime or with voice is not the issue. Voice to text could absolutely capture this conversation easily. And from what I’ve seen Gemini seems quicker than GPT4 Being able to respond quicker and via voice chat is not actually a big deal. The underlying performance of the model is what we…

Even if you'd be inclined to shrug off the fact that this wasn't real-time voice and video-based, which you shouldn't because the underlying implications would be huge for performance, there's still the matter that the prompts used. The prompts shown are miles apart and significantly misrepresent the performance of the underlying model.

It goes from a model being able to infer a great deal at the level of human intelligence to a model that needs to be fed essential details, and that doesn't do much inferring.

I get the feeling that many here on HN who are just shrugging it off don't realize how much of the “demo” was faked. Here’s a decent article that goes into it some more: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/07/googles-best-gemini-demo-w...

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#624

Post by JohnFen »

10u152 wrote: post #432
dvsfish wrote: post #425

I did this at university. It was our first comp sci class ever, we were given raspberry pi's. We had no coding experience or guidance, and were asked to create "something". All we had to work with was information on how to communicate with the pi using putty. Oddly, this assignment didn't require us to submit code, but simply demonstrate it working. My group (3 of us) bought a moisture sensor to plug into the pi, and…

Related, I work with industrial control systems. We’d call this “smoke and mirrors”. Sometimes the client would insist on seeing a small portion of a large project working well before it was ready. They’d misunderstand that 90% of the bulk of the work is not visible to the user but they’d want to see a finished state. We’d set up a dummy HMI and have someone pressing buttons on it for the demo, and someone in the nex…

I, too, work with industrial control systems. If any of us did that sort of thing, we'd be fired instantly -- and rightfully so.

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#625

Post by JohnFen »

gardenhedge wrote: post #436
dvsfish wrote: post #425

I did this at university. It was our first comp sci class ever, we were given raspberry pi's. We had no coding experience or guidance, and were asked to create "something". All we had to work with was information on how to communicate with the pi using putty. Oddly, this assignment didn't require us to submit code, but simply demonstrate it working. My group (3 of us) bought a moisture sensor to plug into the pi, and…

Is this cheating? It sounds like cheating and reflects quite poorly on you.

It's very obviously cheating. They didn't do what the assignment asked.

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#626

Post by jerf »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #508
jerf wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you learn a keyboard layout where the home row is actually the most common keys you use, you will not have to be encouraged to use the home row. You just will. I know, because I have, and I never "tried" to use the home row. People don't hunt and peck after years of keyboard use because of the keyboard; they do it because of the keyboard layout . If you want to prove I'm wrong, go learn Dvorak or Colemak and show…

People will actually avoid using their nondominant fingers like their ring or pinky. Its an issue with typing irrespective of layout. Its an issue with guitarplaying even. I am no pianist but I wouldn’t be surprised if new players have an aversion towards using those fingers as well. I understand how dvorak is designed. I am still not convinced people will be using all their fingers especially their pinkys in a consi…

I really shouldn't be astonished at the number of people who will prioritize their own theorizing over the field report of someone who actually did the thing in question, but yet still somehow I am.

I did it. It happened. Theorizing about why it didn't happen is not terribly productive.

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#627

Post by godelski »

lizard wrote: post #620
addicted wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is only not cheating if it was presented as not a program and a fellow project mate sending out an email. In US colleges at least (only because that’s where I have personal experience…not because I believe standards are any higher or lower here), this is cheating if they led their professor to believe that it was indeed the raspberry pi sending out an email rather than someone at the back of the class.

You're assuming the objective was to develop a functioning program on the Pi. But what if the Pi was only ever meant as a story-telling device to get the students thinking about the kinds of things computer programs can do? Sure, some of students would be able tell a story by building a functioning program, but dvsfish simply found another way to tell theirs.

Have you ever been to the Olympics? Because I think you could medal in gymnastics.

>> It was our first comp sci class ever

>> asked to create "something"

It doesn't matter what that "something" was if you are claiming that you made "something" else. The lie is not necessarily the final result, it is the telling of the final result. The context of the whole thread is also about deceit because rtfa.

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#628

Post by freejazz »

rkeene2 wrote: post #529
freejazz wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point. If I do use it, then my result will be a broken and defective product. How exactly is that not clear? That's the point. It might not be observable to be, but whatever I'm affixing with the staple gun will come loose because its not working right and not sinking the staples in deep enough... If I don't use it, then the tool is not used and provided no benefit...

It's not clear because it is false and I believe I can produce a proof if you are willing to validate that you accept my premise. Your CPU, right now, has known defects. It will produce the wrong outputs for some inputs. It seems to meet your definition of broken. Do you agree with that premise ?

One has nothing to do with the other. There's no rule about all broken tools because they can be broken in different ways. What's so difficult about my hypothetical? I laid it all out for you.

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#629

Post by freejazz »

freedomben wrote: post #185
windowshopping wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with the argument that "if a human can fail in this way, we should overlook this failing in our tooling as well." Because of course that's what LLMs are, tools, like any other piece of software. If a tool is broken, you seek to fix it. You don't just say "ah yeah it's a broken tool, but it's better than nothing!" All these LLM releases are amazing pieces of technology and the progress lately is incredib…

I think you're reading a lot into GP's comment that isn't there. I don't see any ragging on people critiquing it. I think it's perfectly compatible to think we should continually improve on these things while also recognizing that things can be useful without being perfect

I don't think people are disputing that things can be useful without being perfect. My point was that when things aren't perfect, they can also lead to defects that would not otherwise be perceived based upon the belief that the tool was otherwise working at least adequately. Would you use a staple gun if you weren't sure it was actually working? If it's something you don't know a lot about, how can you be sure it's working adequately?

Re: Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice

#630

Post by hot_gril »

antifa wrote: post #602
hot_gril wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are two messaging apps regular people can actually name, unlike all of Google's messaging apps. MSN Messenger survived 13 years supposedly. Skype was also a big thing for several years MS owned it. And I hate Teams personally, but lots of teams use it.

> but lots of teams use it. I bet most team members who switched from Slack to Microsoft Teams do not feel like they consented or were asked for their opinions beforehand.

That distinction doesn't matter to Microsoft. Also it's funny how Google chat products once again go unmentioned... Their alternative is Chat (or idk, chat.google.com), and it's possibly even worse than Teams.
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