Comment by Eduard

1 year ago

seems like as if Gemini was trained excessively on Google PR and marketing material.

Case in point: https://store.google.com/

Recently they have been better, but since I noticed this a number of years ago, google is extremely adverse to putting white people and especially white males in their marketing - unless it is a snippet with someone internal. Then it's pretty often a white male.

To be clear, I don't think that this would even be that bad. But when you look at the demographics of people who use pixel phones, it's like google is using grandpas in the marketing material for graphics cards.

Not a great link for an international audience. Here in Germany, the top image is a white person: https://i.imgur.com/wqfdJ95.png

I’m in the UK and there’s predominantly white people showing on the page.

  • That’s because almost all of this is a distinctly American obsession and problem. Unfortunately it’s gleefully been exported worldwide into contexts where it doesn’t immediately — if at all — apply over the last five years or so and now we’re all saddled with this slow-growing infection.

    Entire careers are built on the sort of thing that led Google to this place, and they’re not gonna give up easily.

Eek @ that page. This is the "latinx" situation all over again.

"Damos as boas vindas" ("(we) bid you welcome"), while syntactically correct, sounds weird to portuguese speakers. The language has masculine and feminine words (often with -o and -a endings). For example, you say "bem vindo" to a male (be it an adult or a kid), "bem vinda" to a female (likewise). When you address a collective, the male version is generally used. "Bem vindo(a)"implies a wish on the part of the one who welcomes, implied in a hidden verb "(seja) bem vindo(a)" ("be"/"have a" welcome).

- "Bem vindos à loja do google" (lit. "welcome to the google store"). This sounds fine.

- "Damos as boas vindas à loja do google" (lit. "(we) bid/wish you (a) welcome to the google store") sounds alien and artificial.

  • Interesting, in Italian it's a bit formal but perfectly acceptable ("vi diamo il benvenuto..."). It's something you might hear at the beginning of a theatre play, or perhaps in the audio guide of a museum.

    • To be faaair, it is not wrong per se, it's just something you would never hear coming from an actual person who is addressing you.

      A shoopkeeper _might_ say "bem vindo" ("welcome"), even though that would be hella corny (we usually open with "hello/good morning/evening/whatever"). They would never say "lhe dou as boas vindas" (singular form of "(lhe) dou(damos) as boas vindas").