[api]

This and that awful Apple ad are both saying the same thing, or at least that’s how people interpret it. They’re saying “AI is here to make life sterile and empty and it’s awesome!”

What I find most intriguing is the fact that these are giant companies with huge ad budgets and that presumably clear the highest profile ads with the C suite or people near it. All these presumably smart people thought these ads were great. They either agreed with the message or wanted to convey a different one that absolutely did not come through… as any moron could have told them.

It shows how insulated the bubble is around these people and companies. They must never even interact with people who aren’t drinking the same brand of kool-aid.

It’s tempting to think this is just an elite mega corp thing but I see loads of out of touch bubbles around.

People need to mix more. Get out of whatever filter bubble you live in. Read things you disagree with. Know people outside your profession or who don’t think like you.

We used to say “travel” but I think intellectual and social diversity is more important now. We carry our filter bubbles with us. Travel can still help though, especially if it’s to places with differing dominant cultures.

[its_ethan]

With respect to the Apple ad, I don't think that was about AI at all - it was for the newest iPad Pro right?

I interpreted it as look at all these cool arts/creative things that we've managed to compress into a single sheet of glass. I sort of get how people interpreted it as just maliciously destroying those things as a means to an end, but that feels like an intentional reading of bad faith to a company that is generally very creativity-minded.

I wonder if it would have received less blow back if they had "hidden" the actual crushing of the objects and just showed them entering a chamber with an implied compression... but the visuals of everything exploding in the hydraulic press are pretty cool and a more dynamic way to convey the "look at what all we've packed into the product" message.

[ethbr1]

> I wonder if it would have received less blow back if they had "hidden" the actual crushing of the objects and just showed them entering a chamber with an implied compression...

Yes. You just wrote a better ad than Apple's highly paid agency.

[consteval]

> intentional reading of bad faith

In my opinion, marketing relies on targeting people's initial guttural feelings. That's why car commercials always show the cool part of driving, to activate the monkey brain "ooo shiny!" mentality.

So, I think criticisms of how people feel are fair game. Meaning if someone doesn't have a logical argument that's fine to me - because marketing is emotional manipulation anyway, so if your emotions got manipulated wrongly then the marketing failed.

[JohnFen]

> but that feels like an intentional reading of bad faith

I don't think it was an intentional reading in bad faith at all. I think the reaction is a result of the general public's existing perception of the state of things: big tech is here to monetize and worsen everything you love.

Whether or not that's an accurate perception, it is a very common one. The tech industry seems to view itself as unalloyed "good guys", but that's not generally how it's viewed among normal people.

[michaelt]

> All these presumably smart people thought these ads were great. They either agreed with the message or wanted to convey a different one that absolutely did not come through… as any moron could have told them.

I imagine there was a conversation something along the lines of:

Google: "Please make us an ad showing off the cool capabilities of our LLM"

Ad agency: "OK, how about we show it boosting productivity in a business environment?"

G: "Sounds like job losses, that's not the vibe we want, got anything else?"

A: "I've heard this stuff has genius-level intellect, could we show it designing a more efficient turbine engine? And we could show the CAD drawing gradually appearing as the AI moves the cursor around?"

G: "Nah, it can't any of that stuff."

A: "What about if we show a home user letting the LLM taking care of boring drudgery, like writing a complaint letter to an inept credit rating agency?"

G: "Boring drudgery isn't the vibe we want in our ad either. Got any other ideas?"

A: "Well what sort of thing were you thinking of?"

G: "How about we show the product being used while enjoying quality time with their family? Smartphone ads always show people taking photographs of their laughing, smiling children."

A: "For real? Like that Apple VR headset ad that shows a dude wearing it while watching his daughters blowing bubbles?"

G: "Oh yeah we had a Google Glass ad showing a dude wearing it while playing with his daughters about a decade ago too! That's precisely the sort of thing we want."