First tests of Google’s Gemini Advanced

[Tom Gally]

As you might have read, Google released Gemini Advanced a day ago. I have been testing it with a variety of tasks. It seems comparable to GPT-4 in many ways, though it refuses to do tasks more often, apparently because of overzealous alignment. One refusal came when I asked it to translate a text that contained academic terms related to sexuality and gender identity. After trying several rephrasings of the prompt, I was finally able to get it to do the translation.

The quality of the Japanese-to-English translations seems comparable to GPT-4 and Claude 2.1. Like the others, Gemini Advanced can produce multiple translations of the same text—a feature of LLMs that I find increasingly useful. It is also much faster than the other two. As shown in the example below, though, Gemini Advanced sometimes leaves difficult-to-translate Japanese words in the English translation; I’ve never seen that from GPT-4 or Claude.

Like its previous incarnation Bard, Gemini Advanced sometimes appends comments after its translation. Here is one that it gave for a newspaper article I had it translate:

The Japanese words 憧れ and ミーハー心 are difficult to translate directly into English. 憧れ can be translated as "aspiration" or "longing," but it also has a sense of wistfulness or yearning. ミーハー心 can be translated as "fan mentality" or "herd mentality," but it also has a sense of being curious or trendy.

Below are the results of another test I did. I gave Gemini Advanced, GPT-4, Claude 2.1, and Mistral Medium the full text of the ご利用の条件 at https://panasonic.jp/danbo/p-db/OH-32W_manualdl.html with this prompt:

The following text in Japanese is from the website of Panasonic. Please translate this text into English in a way that accurately and faithfully reflects the meaning of the original Japanese and is also clear and correct as English.

Here is one section of the original and the four translations of it. Make of them what you will.

なお、本ウェブサイトに公開されている取扱説明書は、原則として商品が発売された当初のものを掲載しています。したがいまして、会社名やお客様ご相談窓口の連絡先などが変更されている場合があります。また、本ウェブサイトに公開されている説明書の記載内容と、お客様がお持ちの商品の仕様がその後のマイナーチェンジにより、異なる場合があります。本ウェブサイトに公開されている取扱説明書の内容とお手持ちの商品の仕様に相違がある場合は、ご購入店、お近くの当社商品の取扱店、または当社サービス会社に直接お問い合わせください。また、商品に同梱される取扱説明書が改訂されている場合、当社の選択により、予告なく、発売当初のものに代えて、改訂版を本ウェブサイトに掲載する場合もあります。ただし、本ウェブサイトに公開されている取扱説明書は、商品本体に同梱する取扱説明書の変更の度に修正・更新するものではありません。

商品には、取扱説明書を補足する操作ガイドなどの印刷物が同梱されていることがありますが、本ウェブサイトではそれらの印刷物は公開しておりませんことをご了承ください。

Gemini Advanced

Please note that the instruction manuals published on this website are, in principle, those that were published when the product was first released. Therefore, the company name and the contact information for the customer consultation窓口 may have changed. In addition, the contents of the instruction manual published on this website may differ from the specifications of your product due to minor changes made after the product was released. If there is a discrepancy between the contents of the instruction manual published on this website and the specifications of your product, please contact the store where you purchased the product, a nearby Panasonic product dealer, or a Panasonic service company directly. In addition, if the instruction manual included with the product has been revised, we may, at our discretion, publish the revised version on this website without notice instead of the original version. However, the instruction manuals published on this website are not updated every time the instruction manual included with the product本体 is changed.

Please note that printed materials such as operation guides that supplement the instruction manual are not published on this website.

ChatGPT 4

The instruction manuals published on this website are, in principle, the original versions released at the time of product launch. Therefore, changes such as the company name and contact information for customer consultation desks may have occurred. Also, the specifications of the product you own may differ due to minor changes made after the release. If there is any discrepancy between the content of the instruction manuals published on this website and the specifications of your product, please contact the store of purchase, a nearby dealer of our products, or our service company directly. Moreover, if the instruction manual included with the product has been revised, we may, at our discretion, post the revised version on this website without prior notice. However, the instruction manuals published on this website are not revised or updated with every change to the instruction manuals included with the product itself. Please note that other printed materials supplementing the instruction manuals, such as operation guides, may be included with the product but are not published on this website.

Claude 2.1

Please note that the instruction manuals published on this website are generally the original manuals included at the time the products launched. Therefore, company names and customer consultation contact information may have changed. Furthermore, the manuals on this website may differ from the specifications of products in the customer’s possession due to minor specification changes made after launch. If you notice inconsistencies between the instruction manual contents published on this website and the specifications of the product in your possession, please contact the original place of purchase, a nearby retailer handling our products, or our service company directly.

Additionally, Panasonic may, without notice, replace initially published manuals with revised versions. However, the instruction manuals published on this website are not updated/revised with every change made to the printed manuals included with products.

Please be aware that operation guides and other supplementary printed materials occasionally included with products are not published on this website.

Mistral Medium

Please note that the manuals published on this website are generally the ones that were published at the time of product release. However, there may be cases where the company name or contact information for customer inquiries has been changed. Additionally, there may be cases where the specifications of the product you have differ from the content of the manual due to minor changes made after release. If there is a discrepancy between the content of the manual published on this website and the specifications of the product you have, please contact the store where you purchased the product, a nearby Panasonic product dealer, or our service company directly. However, please note that the manuals published on this website are not updated or modified each time the manual included with the product is revised.

Please note that the manuals provided with the product may include operating guides and other printed materials to supplement the manual, but these materials are not published on this website.

Tom Gally