--- title: "Google’s Apparently Building an AI That Tells You How to Live Your Life" description: "Fix Me Google DeepMind researchers have finally found a way to make life coaching even worse: infuse it with generative AI. As The New York Times reports, Google and the Google-owned DeepMind AI lab are working with \"generative AI to perform at least 21 different types of personal and professional tasks,\" internal documents have revealed. […]" date: "2023-08-18" modified: "2023-08-18" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-ai-life-coach" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "ai" - "ai assistants" - "Google" - "the digest" --- # Google’s Apparently Building an AI That Tells You How to Live Your Life ![Google DeepMind researchers have finally found a way to make life coaching even worse: infuse it with generative AI.]() *Flying robot lifts young girl in the sky \Image: Getty Images\* ## Fix Me Google DeepMind researchers have finally found a way to make life coaching even worse: infuse it with generative AI. According to internal documents [obtained by *The New York Times* reports](), Google and the Google-owned DeepMind AI lab are working with "generative AI to perform at least 21 different types of personal and professional tasks." And among those tasks, apparently, is an effort to use generative AI to build a "life advice" tool. You know, because an inhuman AI model knows everything there is to know about navigating the complexities of mortal human existence. As the *NYT* points out, the news of the effort notably comes months after AI safety experts at Google said, back in just December, that users of AI systems could suffer "diminished health and well-being" and a "loss of agency" as the result of taking AI-spun life advice. The Google chatbot Bard, meanwhile, is barred from providing legal, financial, or medical advice to its users. But now, not even a year later, Google is looking like it's tempted to throw its previous caution — and safety research — to the wind. There's an AI-sized hole in the life coaching market, it seems, and the longtime search giant is hoping to fill it — even though the ethics feel murky at best. ## Destination Wedding Per the *NYT's* reporting, researchers at the DeepMind-contracted firm Scale AI have been working to test the project, and have assembled large teams of workers — including more than 100 experts with doctorates in various fields — to do so. The *NYT* was also privy to an example of the types of questions that Google believes its AI might be helpful with, including a pressing query about destination wedding etiquette. Legitimately challenging stuff, in other words. Elsewhere, according to the report, Google is also working on a tutoring tool, in addition to a planner of sorts with the ability to create things like budgets, meal plans, and workout guides. ## Automatic Existence According to the *NYT*, Google has yet to decide whether it'll deploy any of these tools. And for its part, Google DeepMind defended the ongoing effort, noting that its evaluation process is a "critical step in building safe and helpful technology," and that "at any time," there "are many such evaluations ongoing." To be fair, it's not terribly surprising to see Google go this route. Almost every major tech company has been working to break through with a [truly advanced, comprehensive AI assistant]() for some time, and humanity has already automated ourselves halfway into oblivion, anyway. Whether it's healthy or not, making real-life choices from unreal, human-mimicking AI programs feels like the only logical next evolution for our automation-addicted lives. **More on Google AI:** [*Google’s Lead AI Guy Says AI Will Be Amazing, Unless It Kills Us*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()