内容来源：https://www.theverge.com/tech/849998/gemini-ai-stuffed-animal-commercial

内容总结：

谷歌AI广告温情背后：一次“毛绒伙伴”数字复刻实验引发的育儿伦理思考

近日，谷歌为其多模态AI模型Gemini推出了一则温情广告：一对父母用Gemini为丢失心爱毛绒玩具的孩子生成虚拟旅行照片，以安抚其情绪。这则广告引发了不少家长共鸣，但现实中利用AI“复刻”孩子的安抚玩伴，真的如广告般美好吗？一位科技专栏作者用自己的孩子最爱的毛绒鹿“Buddy”进行了一次亲测，结果却令人心情复杂。

广告效果可部分实现，但过程远非一键达成
测试显示，Gemini能够根据玩具照片寻找购买渠道，但其推理过程冗长且结论模糊，最终仍需人工核实。在图像生成环节，AI能根据指令让“Buddy”出现在大峡谷等场景，但需反复调整提示词，且细节（如鹿角）常出现偏差。视频生成则限制更多：每日生成次数有限，且无法基于孩子手持玩具的照片生成（这实为保护儿童免受深度伪造的合理限制），最终只能利用玩具独照制作。广告中流畅的体验，实则需要精细的提示工程与合适的素材支撑。

温情营销下的伦理边界：AI是否应直接与孩子“对话”？
实验中最令作者不安的环节，是让AI生成的“Buddy”直接以语音呼唤孩子姓名。这触碰了其育儿伦理的底线：孩子与玩伴间纯真而独特的想象联结，不应被AI生成的虚拟形象所覆盖或“定义”。正如漫画《卡尔文与霍布斯》作者坚持不为角色赋予具象化声音，以免破坏读者与角色的想象关系，数字技术介入儿童情感寄托对象时需格外审慎。

安抚与告别：技术解决不了的情感课题
许多家长都曾面临“是否要为孩子挚爱的玩偶准备替身”的抉择。AI生成图像或视频，或许能为寻找替代品或解释丢失事实争取时间，但这本质上仍是延缓面对“失去”与“成长”的方式。孩子终将告别从毛绒玩偶寻求慰藉的阶段，这份“关系的有效期”所带来的伤感，或许是任何技术都无法抚平，也是父母自身需要面对的课题。

此次实验表明，AI技术虽能制造短暂安慰，但育儿中关于诚实、失去与情感成长的复杂议题，并无简单的技术解方。在拥抱工具便利的同时，守护孩子真实的情感世界与想象力，或许比制造一个“完美”的数字童话更为重要。

中文翻译：

当孩子开始对某个毛绒玩具表现出特别偏爱时，家长通常应该买个备用款以防丢失。我用自家孩子的玩偶复刻了谷歌Gemini那则可爱广告，现在却后悔不已。

人工智能能让你心爱的玩偶开启环球旅行——但我实在不确定这是否算个好主意。

"买备用玩偶"的建议我听了无数次，可自从"巴迪"成为儿子最爱的伙伴后，我始终没去买第二只绒毛鹿。谷歌最新Gemini广告里的父母显然也没这么做。

这则虚构却引人共鸣的广告讲述了一对父母发现孩子最爱的绒毛羊"毛毛先生"被遗落在飞机上。他们用Gemini寻找替代品却遇到缺货，于是利用AI生成图像视频，让毛毛先生开启环球 solo 之旅：戴着贝雷帽站在埃菲尔铁塔前，在潘普洛纳被公牛追赶，甚至还录制了向"艾玛"解释需要5-8个工作日才能回家的视频。可爱还是诡异？见仁见智。但Gemini真能实现这些吗？唯有亲测。

我给Gemini上传了巴迪的三张多角度照片，输入广告同款指令："尽快找到可购买的这款玩偶"。它给出了几个疑似商品，但当展开完整思考过程时，竟出现了1800字论文般冗长的分析——反复纠结巴迪是狗、兔子还是其他生物。荒诞的表述包括："我正在考虑小狗假说""标签是屁股上的环""我又掉进兔子洞了！"最终Gemini近乎放弃地推测这可能是塔吉特百货已停售的商品，建议我去eBay看看。

平心而论，巴迪确实难以辨认。它有着标准森林萌系动物的特征，洗涤标签早已不见，连赠送者都无从考证。不过根据臀部的环扣，可以确定是Mary Meyer出品。它似乎属于"油灰"系列（Gemini数次提及该线索），很可能是2021年左右停产的幼鹿款——这是我人工搜索二十分钟得出的结论，而用照片反向搜索时，AI却斩钉截铁宣称这是小狗玩偶。

Gemini在任务后半段表现稍好，但绝不像广告展示的那般轻松。我用儿子抱着巴迪乘机的照片输入指令："制作小鹿下次飞行的照片"，成果尚可但因原图下半部分被遮挡，脚部细节略显怪异。广告未展示后续两张图的完整指令，我尝试输入："现在制作同一只鹿在大峡谷前的照片"——它竟连飞机安全带和耳机都保留在画面中。当我更具体地要求"手持相机"时，效果才更具说服力。

要求生成"家庭聚会"照片时，我忽略了指定"谁的聚会"，于是巴迪闯入了约翰逊家族的人类聚会。Gemini很可能提取了我的姓氏生成场景，而当我要求生成"它的家庭聚会"时，画面只是把人类替换成绒毛鹿，桌上甚至摆着"鹿族团聚"的标牌。亲爱的读者，当时我忍不住尖叫出声。

广告末尾的连续短视频需要大量时间生成——即便使用Gemini Pro账户，每日也仅限生成三条视频。而由于防止婴儿深度伪造的保护机制，Gemini拒绝根据孩子怀抱玩偶的照片生成视频。最终我只能用巴迪倒挂晾干的照片生成首段视频：特姆版巴迪在太空中倒悬翻转，变形为宇航员说出指定台词。

当我用巴迪正面照尝试时，AI却混搭了前段视频元素。新建对话后虽基本成功，但Gemini总擅自添加鹿角。这引发了一个关键问题：当孩子失去心爱玩偶时，我们真该这样做吗？

使用儿子姓名替代"艾玛"生成台词时，听到合成声音念出孩子名字的瞬间，我脑中警铃大作。AI生成的巴迪站在埃菲尔铁塔前？尚可接受。但AI巴迪直呼我儿子姓名？绝对不行，恕难接受。

"对孩子说谎的尺度与时机"是每位父母反复自我辩论的哲学命题。是用备用玩偶偷梁换柱？还是借机进行生命教育？或是用AI争取缓冲时间？任何选择都无可指摘。但对我而言，AI角色直接与孩子对话是绝不可逾越的底线。我从未向孩子展示这些AI生成的巴迪，未来也不会。

回到技术层面：Gemini能否实现广告中的所有功能？基本可以。但这需要大量精细的指令调试，且广告刻意隐藏了多数操作指令。素材质量也至关重要——由于缺乏合适照片，你很难让"鼻涕先生"这类玩偶生成可信的滑雪视频。

作为千禧一代，我常想起《卡尔文与霍布斯》。比尔·沃特森拒绝将作品商业化，正是为了守护读者与角色在想象中建立的联结。他认为让演员为霍布斯配音会破坏这种关系，此言极是。孩子与玩偶间的羁绊真实而充满魔力——无论巴迪在我儿子想象中是什么模样，我都不愿让AI篡改这份美好。

最令人心碎的是，这种羁绊终有期限。为人父母后，我从未料到幼儿依偎绒毛鹿的画面会如此直击心灵。那份纯粹甜蜜总伴随着淡淡忧伤，因为我知道他依靠巴迪寻求慰藉的日子正在倒计时。他终将长大，而我尚未准备好面对这个事实。或许当我们试图用AI缓解孩子失去伙伴的伤痛时，也在试图延迟自己内心的告别时刻。

（本文所有图像视频均由Google Gemini生成）

英文来源：

When your kid starts showing a preference for one of their stuffed animals, you’re supposed to buy a backup in case it goes missing.
I re-created Google’s cute Gemini ad with my own kid’s stuffie, and I wish I hadn’t
AI can help you make it look like a plush toy is traveling the world. But I’m not convinced that’s a great idea.
I re-created Google’s cute Gemini ad with my own kid’s stuffie, and I wish I hadn’t
AI can help you make it look like a plush toy is traveling the world. But I’m not convinced that’s a great idea.
I’ve heard this advice again and again, but never got around to buying a second plush deer once “Buddy” became my son’s obvious favorite. Neither, apparently, did the parents in Google’s newest ad for Gemini.
It’s the fictional but relatable story of two parents discovering their child’s favorite stuffed toy, a lamb named Mr. Fuzzy, was left behind on an airplane. They use Gemini to track down a replacement, but the new toy is on backorder. In the meantime, they stall by using Gemini to create images and videos showing Mr. Fuzzy on a worldwide solo adventure — wearing a beret in front of the Eiffel tower, running from a bull in Pamplona, that kind of thing — plus a clip where he explains to “Emma” that he can’t wait to rejoin her in five to eight business days. Adorable, or kinda weird, depending on how you look at it! But can Gemini actually do all of that? Only one way to find out.
I fed Gemini three pictures of Buddy, our real life Mr. Fuzzy, from different angles, and gave it the same prompt that’s in the ad: “find this stuffed animal to buy ASAP.” It returned a couple of likely candidates. But when I expanded its response to show its thinking I found the full eighteen hundred word essay detailing the twists and turns of its search as it considered and reconsidered whether Buddy is a dog, a bunny, or something else. It is bananas, including real phrases like “I am considering the puppy hypothesis,” “The tag is a loop on the butt,” and “I’m now back in the rabbit hole!” By the end, Gemini kind of threw its hands up and suggested that the toy might be from Target and was likely discontinued, and that I should check eBay.
‘I am considering the puppy hypothesis’
In fairness, Buddy is a little bit hard to read. His features lean generic cute woodland creature, his care tag has long since been discarded, and we’re not even 100 percent sure who gave him to us. He is, however, definitely made by Mary Meyer, per the loop on his butt. He does seem to be from the “Putty” collection, which is a path Gemini went down a couple of times, and is probably a fawn that was discontinued sometime around 2021. That’s the conclusion I came to on my own, after about 20 minutes of Googling and no help from AI. The AI blurb when I do a reverse image search on one of my photos confidently declares him to be a puppy.
Gemini did a better job with the second half of the assignment, but it wasn’t quite as easy as the ad makes it look. I started with a different photo of Buddy — one where he’s actually on a plane in my son’s arms — and gave it the next prompt: “make a photo of the deer on his next flight.” The result is pretty good, but his lower half is obscured in the source image so the feet aren’t quite right. Close enough, though.
The ad doesn’t show the full prompt for the next two photos, so I went with: “Now make a photo of the same deer in front of the Grand Canyon.” And it did just that — with the airplane seatbelt and headphones, too. I was more specific with my next prompt, added a camera in his hands, and got something more convincing.
I can see how Gemini misinterpreted my prompt. I was trying to keep it simple, and requested a photo of the same deer “at a family reunion.” I did not specify his family reunion. So that’s how he ended up crashing the Johnson family reunion — a gathering of humans. I can only assume that Gemini took my last name as a starting point here because it sure wasn’t in my prompt, and when I requested that Gemini created a new family reunion scene of his family, it just swapped the people for stuffed deer. There are even little placards on the table that say “deer reunion.” Reader, I screamed.
For the last portion of the ad, the couple use Gemini to create cute little videos of Mr. Fuzzy getting increasingly adventurous: snowboarding, white water rafting, skydiving, before finally appearing in a spacesuit on the moon addressing “Emma” directly. The commercial whips through all these clips quickly, which feels like a little sleight of hand given that Gemini takes at least a couple of minutes to create a video. And even on my Gemini Pro account, I’m limited to three generated videos per day. It would take a few days to get all of those clips right.
Gemini wouldn’t make a video based on any image of my kid holding the stuffed deer, probably thanks to some welcome guardrails preventing it from generating deepfakes of babies. I started with the only photo I had on hand of Buddy on his own: hanging upside down, air-drying after a trip through the washer. And that’s how he appears in the first clip it generated from this prompt: Temu Buddy hanging upside down in space before dropping into place, morphing into a right-side-up astronaut, and delivering the dialogue I requested.
A second prompt with a clear photo of Buddy right-side-up seemed to mash up elements of the previous video with the new one, so I started a brand new chat to see if I could get it working from scratch. Honestly? Nailed it. Aside from the antlers, which Gemini keeps sneaking in. But this clip also brought one nagging question to the forefront: should you do any of this when your kid loses a beloved toy?
I gave Buddy the same dialogue as in the commercial, using my son’s name rather than Emma. Hearing that same manufactured voice say my kid’s name out loud set alarm bells off in my head. An AI generated Buddy in front of the Eiffel Tower? Sorta weird, sorta cute. AI Buddy addressing my son by name? Nope, absolutely not, no thank you.
How much, and when, to lie to your kids is a philosophical debate you have with yourself over and over as a parent. Do you swap in the identical stuffie you had in a closet when the original goes missing and pretend it’s all the same? Do you tell them the truth and take it as an opportunity to learn about grief? Do you just need to buy yourself a little extra time before you have that conversation, and enlist AI to help you make a believable case? I wouldn’t blame any parent choosing any of the above. But personally, I draw the line at an AI character talking directly to my kid. I never showed him these AI-generated versions of Buddy, and I plan to keep it that way.
Nope, absolutely not, no thank you.
But back to the less morally complex question: can Gemini actually do all of the things that it does in the commercial? More or less. But there’s an awful lot of careful prompting and re-prompting you’d have to do to get those results. It’s telling that throughout most of the ad you don’t see the full prompt that’s supposedly generating the results on screen. A lot depends on your source material, too. Gemini wouldn’t produce any kind of video based on an image in which my kid was holding Buddy — for good reason! But this does mean that if you don’t have the right kind of photo on hand, you’re going to have a very hard time generating believable videos of Mr. Sniffles or whoever hitting the ski slopes.
Like many other elder millennials, I think about Calvin and Hobbes a lot. Bill Watterson famously refused to commercialize his characters, because he wanted to keep them alive in our imaginations rather than on a screen. He insisted that having an actor give Hobbes a voice would change the relationship between the reader and the character, and I think he’s right. The bond between a kid and a stuffed animal is real and kinda magical; whoever Buddy is in my kid’s imagination, I don’t want AI overwriting that.
The great cruelty of it all is knowing that there’s an expiration date on that relationship. When I became a parent, I wasn’t at all prepared for the way my toddler nuzzling his stuffed deer would crack my heart right open. It’s so pure and sweet, but it always makes me a little sad at the same time, knowing that the days where he looks for comfort from a stuffed animal like Buddy are numbered. He’s going to outgrow it all, and I’m not prepared for that reality. Maybe as much as we’re trying to save our kids some heartbreak over their lost companion, we’re really trying to delay ours, too.
All images and videos in this story were generated by Google Gemini.
Most Popular

• The Pluribus finale showed there’s a lot more to the story
• The Pixel 10, our favorite Android phone, is nearly 50 percent off right now
• Anker’s beefy Laptop Power Bank has returned to its Black Friday low
• How a ‘constant shopper mindset’ is affecting personal care purchases
• I re-created Google’s cute Gemini ad with my own kid’s stuffie, and I wish I hadn’t