Google AI will help you “be more productive” by writing thank-you notes, Rick Osterloh, VP of Devices and Services at Google, said in a interview with Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal ($/£). Osterloh says putting down the pen and switching to digital thank-you notes helped him write “10 times more emails than handwritten thank-you notes.” In the future, AI will help us write exponentially more thank-you notes in even less time.
Doesn’t that make you sad? The problem is the impersonal nature of such a feature. Google’s AI can do the things a human can do, but it’s not the things themselves that matter – it does them.
Like many people, I hate writing thank you notes. I love receiving gifts and I love saying thank you, but writing thank you notes turns an occasion into a tedious follow-up chore. Still, on special occasions, I write the notes because I have received thank you notes and I know how good it feels.
Receiving a thank-you note is the ideal outcome of giving a gift, aside from the joy of giving, of course. When I receive a handwritten thank-you note, I don’t see words on paper. I see the time it took to write them. I see the effort it took to find special stationery, dig out the junk drawer for stamps, and put the letter in a real mailbox.
Writing 100 thank you notes after my wedding was grueling work—coming up with something unique and personal to say to everyone. But these aren’t strangers. They’re friends and cousins and coworkers and lovers. You know, people, relationships, that kind of human stuff.
When I get a thank you card after someone else’s wedding and it’s two blank lines of text that barely acknowledge our connection—proof of life for a gift—I still feel honored and excited. I know how much effort goes into it and I appreciate it when it’s done for me.
Being human is an experience, not a result
How many times are we going to have the same conversation, Google? Stop taking the humanity out of my human life. I don’t want an AI that writes thank you cards because there’s no humanity in that. I don’t want an AI that creates fake memories in the form of photos. It makes me sad when people promote these AI benefits.
I’m having the same issue with Google’s latest camera trick. The new Add Me camera feature on the Pixel 9 worked really well in my hands-on time, and it solves a real problem. If you’re hanging out with a group of people and you want to take a group photo, the photographer gets left out of the shot. Add Me can add you to group photos using AI.
As a human being, I often ask other people to take a photo of me and my group, and I have never met a human being who refused. Thankfully, Google has solved this problem.
@techradar
♬ Storytelling – Adriel
When it’s done, you’ll have an Add Me photo. There you are, standing next to the group. Now imagine what it’ll feel like to look at that photo in five years, or ten years, or so far into the future that you don’t remember everyone’s name. I promise you’ll get there faster than you’d like.
A real group photo makes you feel a real connection with people. I remember a group of us taking a photo at Dorney Park in Pennsylvania. I remember standing in the back, because I’m tall, and putting my arms around the smaller people in front of me. I wish I had taken my hat off, because you can’t see my face, but I was there.
I remember being there, and that’s important. In fact, that’s the only important thing.
Even if I forget the names of the people in the photo, I’ll still feel like I’m there. When I use Google’s Add Me, what will I feel? The time I stood alone while my friend used a Google Pixel 9 to add me? I won’t remember what it felt like to stand in the back, with my arms around people, that’s for sure, because I’ll be alone.
Here’s a picture of me and a celebrity I haven’t met
Google’s own example for Add Me is even worse. You can take a photo of your friend with a celebrity, Google suggests, and then add yourself later. Onstage at its Made By Google event, Google used Add Me with Miami Heat superstar Jimmy Butler. One presenter stood next to Jimmy Buckets while the other snapped a photo. The photographer then used Add Me to add himself to the photo.
We all know how this feature is really going to be used. I see Chris Rock crossing the street in Manhattan and I take a picture with Add Me. Then I add myself to the picture, making it look like Chris Rock and I are crossing the street together.
Sorry Chris Rock, I’m only using you as an example because I ACTUALLY saw you crossing the street once, and I did NOT take a picture and add myself later. That would have been sad. And what would I say if I showed people that picture?
“This is Chris Rock and me!”
“Oh, have you met Chris Rock?”
“No, but I took a picture and added myself later via Google’s Add Me!” See?
Sad.
I used to call these AI features creepy, but now I realize they mostly make me sad.
If I sent 100 thank you emails, written entirely by Gemini AI, will I feel satisfied? Will I feel like I thanked someone?
And what happens the next time I get a thank you… (ugh) a thank you email? Will it have the same impact? If I think it was written by AI, can it even have an impact?
An AI can write you a note, but it won’t be a thank you. Google’s AI can add you to a group photo, but it won’t make you feel like you’re part of the group. These AI tools won’t do what their creators say they will, because they claim to help us with our human needs, but – and I’m going to say it again – there is no humanity in AI.