More pineapple

This by way of follow up to Gemini’s effort at reference 1 – Gemini being one of Google’s AI offerings. I use the premium version which I pay for. My last serious checking exercise on Gemini, concerning the use of gender – more properly nominal classes – in Bantu languages, is to be found at reference 2.

–What can you tell me about Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh and pineapples?

My question to Gemini was about the CEO and chief shareholder of Fresh Del Monte Produce Incorporated (FDMP in what follows), Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh, and I included pineapples in the question so that it was clear who I was asking about. I had been prompted to do this by poking around the world of pineapples, having bought one from Waitrose.

 Gemini’s initial response led off with his launching of the Rubyglow pineapple (snapped twice above) as evidence of his entrepreneurial spirit and skills.

What Gemini does not make clear is that Rubyglow is a luxury pineapple, presently produced in very limited numbers and selling in the US, in a fancy box, for around $400. Apparently, the plan is that the Chinese will go for them. But it is not really central to the FDMP operation, which involves all manner of fresh and canned fruit and vegetables.

Then there is a range of other topics which I might be interested in, mostly not suggested by this first question.

–What about Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh himself, his family, his background and his life-style?

–What else does FDMP do? How about a sketch, a thumbnail of its operations? Gemini is supposed to be good at what used to be called précis.

–What about the various other Del Monte companies, which share the use of the name, but which are otherwise quite distinct, in particular Del Monte Foods. Their history, who owns them. Aside: it seems that the name was chosen back in 1900 or so for a famous resort hotel on the Monterey Peninsula. The marketing men no doubt hoped that the class of the hotel would rub off on the tins of pineapple.

–What about the competition, for example Dole, the company once called the Hawaiian Pineapple Company? Headquartered in Ireland. Another aside: I came across a consumer survey of tinned pineapple which put Dole top and Del Monte bottom. A survey which also came with some rather tacky advertising.

–What about the messy business with Reynolds (the tobacco people), Nabisco and Polly Peck, out of which Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh emerged as the boss of FDMP? Aside: plus, no doubt, lots of fees for the investment bankers.

–What about Costa Rica itself? Once something like a banana republic – a name originally applied to Honduras and Guatemala – but now a proper (if small) country with a good education system, an educated workforce and with agriculture only taking 5% of GDP. But it still has a very large share of the international trade in pineapples, and the various Del Montes have a large share of that.

The supplementaries

On the face of it, a rather unbalanced reply. But once again, perhaps the wording of the question invited Gemini to focus on an aspect of the matter of its own choosing.

I followed up with:

–That deals with Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh and his pineapples. What about the man himself?

–He must be thinking of retirement. Does he have family waiting to step up?

–Is much known about his private life? Search of the Internet reveals little on that front. Not even a useful Wikipedia entry.

–I did see something about a large yacht owned by his wife. Do you know anything about that? 

To which Gemini replies with a few facts, then observing that Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh, like many rich businessmen, likes to be private and very little information about his yacht is available.

–There is some stuff on this yacht to be found at https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/maraya/. 

The first three of which got sensible and entirely plausible replies. But some of the facts given in the fourth do not agree with what Bing turned up on a super yacht website, which Gemini had clearly not taken on board. Aside: maybe even rich businessmen who take care to keep their private life private, cannot resist boasting about their big yachts!

The super yacht website also offered the best picture of the man. An identification confirmed by Google Image Search, who also offers various related trivia from LinkedIn. And I learn that the super yacht website comes in lots of languages. And in case I am not satisfied with all that he offers Professor James Miller, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of the West of Scotland or a Christmas card from Piero L. Ferrari. 

Additional material

It so happens that this Saturday morning, the paid-for digital version of the Financial Times was carrying a lot of advertisements for Gemini. At least it was at 05:00: by 08:00 it seemed to have moved onto Glenfiddich whisky. Then Laurent-Perrier.

Conclusions

Gemini’s initial reply, while correct in what he did say, was unbalanced. While there is a lot of Rubyglow in the media, it does not merit headlining in this way.

I get a lot more out of Gemini by engaging in a dialogue, in much the same way as one would with a person. This can result in a lot of repetition and some of his mannerisms can be irritating – but there is lots of stuff there to be tapped. Plausible but unreliable stuff: you would not want to bet your shirt on it. But sometimes, having got a candidate answer, it is easy enough to check it.

One suspects that Gemini is still making stuff up, in this case about the yacht, rather than just picking it up from a badly edited website.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/pineapple.html. 

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/bantu.html. 

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Del_Monte_Produce.