Hey, Google: Prerecorded AI Presentations Are the Coward's Way Out
At last year's Made by Google event, Gemini failed twice during a live demonstration. Though moments like this are undoubtedly embarrassing for companies, they add a layer of authenticity you don't get with a prerecorded keynote event. But unfortunately, Google chose the prerecorded route for Tuesday's Android Show: I/O Edition. The format felt way too staged and polished for my liking, and it stripped away the feeling of reality that comes with live, warts-and-all demos.
During the Android Show: I/O Edition, we saw a demonstration of Gemini sharing makeup tips, helping someone find a time to grab lunch in their busy schedule, and giving a summary of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Because these were prerecorded interactions, Gemini handled the requests with aplomb -- no hiccups or issues in sight. But tests show that AI models routinely get things wrong.
According to the AI testing site LiveBench, Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview is generally correct about 79% of the time. That's not bad, but it's not great either. And despite that score, this model of Gemini is still one of the best AI models the site tested, losing out to only two other models: OpenAI's o3 High and o4 Medium models.
Sure, nothing is perfect, and devices and software have bugs. But if you give me a calculator and promise it works all the time, but in reality it's wrong 20% of the time, that feels like a major discrepancy.
Since Gemini outperformed most other AI models LiveBench tested, there's a good chance I'd still use Gemini, even if the live demo stalled. But because Google opted for a superpolished demonstration, I have a hard time knowing what to believe.
Look, I understand why a company would want its product to work properly at its own event. But showing AI tools making mistakes feels more honest than acting like the tool is perfect. These capabilities are flawed, and that's fine, but be honest with people about those flaws and show your new features in action. Don't sell me smoke and mirrors.
For more on Google, here's what to know about Android 16 and the Material 3 Expressive design.
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Having used pre-modern tools to survive and modern technology to thrive, the idea that digital technology can help transcend the limitations set by nature doesn't seem far-fetched (see illustration). However, by not realizing that our relationship with technology is existential, AI experts seem to have missed that AI was never just a tool to make us more productive, or to help us do 'good'. It was always also an expression of who we are and what we are becoming. And by building technology that distances itself from the limitations of nature, we also began to distance ourselves from our human nature. According to Heidegger, this distancing has been going on for centuries without any of us noticing it. The widespread debate about AI as an existential threat is a sign that this is changing. And that AI may be the starting point for us humans to finally develop a more reflective and healthy relationship with technology. 3. Make Existential Hope A Joint Venture Heidegger concludes The Question Concerning Technology by writing: 'The closer we come to the danger, the brighter the ways into the saving power begin to shine and the more questioning we become. For questioning is the piety of thought.' While AI experts are calling for regulation, for AI development to be paused, and even for new philosophers to help them deal with the threat they see AI posing, hope shines from a completely different place than tech companies and regulators. 'Where?' you may ask. And that's just it. We are asking more existential questions about who we are, why we are here, and where we want to go as humanity than ever before. And with 'we', I don't mean philosophers, tech experts, and decision makers. I mean all of us in all sorts of contexts in all parts of the world. There is something about AI that, unlike previous generations of technology, makes us ask the questions that the essence of technology has previously discouraged us from asking. Unlike modern technologies like cars and digital technologies like computers, we actually have a widespread debate about what AI is preventing us from doing and what our lives will be like if we trust AI to make everything easy. And this instills hope. Existential hope that we still know and are willing to do what it takes to stay human. Even when it doesn't equal innovative, fast, and efficient. Senior journalist with BBC Global News, Richard Fisher defines existential hope as "the opposite of existential catastrophe: It's the idea that there could be radical turns for the better, so long as we commit to bringing them to reality. Existential hope is not about escapism, utopias or pipe dreams, but about preparing the ground: making sure that opportunities for a better world don't pass us by.' With A Philosopher's Guide to AI, the questions we ask about AI offers a once in many lifetimes opportunity for a better world. Let's make sure it doesn't pass us by!
