Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A Reddit user reported that Gemini for Home initially refused to play white noise, claiming it could only broadcast messages.
- The AI assistant eventually performed the task after the user encouraged it, highlighting a “gaslighting” trend in modern AI.
- While Gemini in Google Home excels at context, it often struggles with basic commands that the original Google Assistant handled easily.
Gemini is slowly but surely replacing Google Assistant throughout Google’s smart home ecosystem. While we wait for a broader rollout, most Google Home users just want the basics to work again. Unfortunately, Google still has some work to do, as Gemini for Home sometimes ends up gaslighting users about what it can and cannot do, as one Reddit user found out.
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Reddit user SnackShackit commanded Gemini to play white noise on their speakers, but Gemini responded that it couldn’t; it can only broadcast messages. All it took for Gemini to make a complete U-turn was some encouragement from the user, and sure enough, Gemini finally got the command right and played white noise on the speaker.
The Reddit user’s experience largely aligns with what my colleague Calvin mentioned as a drawback for Gemini for Home. While Gemini on Google Home is great for understanding context and nuance, it often fails and even refuses to execute basic commands.
This isn’t the first time that AI has gaslit users — just yesterday, we reported on Alexa Plus snarkily gaslighting a user after hallucinating a command. Unfortunately, it is also far from the last time, and you can expect random gaslighting from all AI assistants, whether it’s Alexa Plus, Gemini, or any other, whether on smart homes or elsewhere. The upgrade to AI does feel like two steps forward and two steps back.
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