I think this is mostly just a problem of not having good reasons to sell AI products to consumers in the first place.
I recently saw some Ray Ban Meta glasses ads.
One of them had a guy ask the glasses to describe what was in front of his face, and then he remarked “wow that’s accurate” (there are people skateboarding). The guy wasn’t blind. His use of the glasses made little sense.
Another ad has a young man asking his glasses how to dress for fall and then blindly following the suggestions like they’ve never dressed themselves before. It was embarrassing to watch.
A third ad has someone ask their glasses how to decorate for a disco theme party, and then they implement the very mediocre suggestions.
None of these things required AI, it’s just kind of “there”, and companies are like “idk maybe people will use our AI to like… dress themselves? or something?”
No way! There are definitely legitimate use-cases for all of the features demoed in these ads, but Apple's marketing took a darker path.
Email to boss: could've been someone who had a genuine struggle with language using it to finally get their boss to notice the effort they put into their work.
Remembering a name: could've used it to get the name and left it at them being impressed rather than making it a lie.
Summarizing email: could've used it when in a hurry at work whilst someone sent an extremely long email.
Video memories: could've used it for two people to share a nostalgic moment together without making it a lie.
The fact that lying is a core element of the ads is what makes them so gross to me.
The guys says he's surprised she remembers him. She could just look straight at the camera, say what can I say, I'm very intelligent, wink, and it wouldn't be gross.
My writing ability might not be good enough to make them flashy here on HN, but I am sure that each of the scenarios could be made very flashy or moving with a bit of imagination & Apple's still-excellent production quality.
One of my favourite ads is a very simple story that is made gut-wrenching by creating an emotional connection and some great production value: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lv_Xl1e4U
If I try to watch a technical review on a smartphone, they’ll still talk about camera megapixels, screen size/brightness, corners, etc. No one talks about scroll sensitivity and jankiness, [bad] position of buttons on screen and on the frame, sensor nuances, how it feels in a pocket, can it work as a display, notification sounds and sound level separation, etc.
All marketing, including third-party based, focuses on absolutely basic features for abstract people who do nothing and have no problems to solve apart from taking pics of themselves and other two-digit iq activities. I guess it’s only logical for this image to walk into a skate park and ask their glasses about what these guys are doing.
> mostly just a problem of not having good reasons
I disagree, I think this is bad ethics, and bad marketing people, working for Apple...what other explanation - same people crushed musical instruments and books, human craft-work -- using a hydraulic press, in a recent Apple advert.
Advertising certainly can show outrageous ways to behave, and it's "okay". Calling someone and simply shouting WAZZZAAAAAAP! into the cell phone, for the famous Budweiser advert during the superbowl...derives into a crew of 3-5 people shouting AAAAAAAAAAAZZZAAA into their phones, oddly. That was cute ....
However this is about enabling through lying. In one ADVERT it makes a Manager believe an Employee is more engaged than they truly are, rewriting their unprofessional language using the new "Professional" button, reasonably leading to a future misallocation of resources by the manager to the irresponsible seemingly under-skilled or simply lazy unethical employee.
What's worse is the people who are NOT using Apple products to lie. The Employees who did not lie about their grip on written language now have to compete with AI, wielded by their ill-behaved coworker. It stratifies society into Idiocracy.
This is a TERRIFYING series of advertisements chosen by Apple.
The signaling value of knowing how to writey words good is dead. More dead even than a coffin-nail, and assuredly that of a door (thanks, Dickens).
Signaling through speaking will become even more important. Get thy children to debate club, seminar-based classes (hope you're rich!), theater, and hell, I dunno, ToastMasters Junior or whatever.
But millions of people have been using Grammarly, et al. for this for years. Managers have actually paid to deploy tools like this to their employees. The ship you're talking about has already sailed.
Nonsense. Are people who use spell checkers also lying when the computer helps them not sound like an illiterate 5th grader? What about Word’s pre-AI grammar correction?
Further, it’s pretty clear from the watching the commercial that the boss is not fooled by this. The humor of the commercial is supposed to derive from the absolute contrast between the well established and known behavior of the employee and the content of their email. Humor doesn’t always land for everyone to be sure but this sounds like the same sort of handwringing over tech replacing human effort we’ve seen for years. Calculators would let people bad at math sneak their way into jobs where you need math, IDEs will let people bad at coding sneak their way into places where you need to code. Now it’s “ai grammar editing” will allow people bad at writing professionally sneak into places where they need to edit professionally.
I think this is one of those things where the root cause is a social problem rather than a technical one, and trying to use technical solutions is somewhat helpful at best and masking huge issues at worst. If people can't write professionally, then the proper solution is better education, perhaps some education through onboarding in the job, and/or the boss being more flexible when reading. At least the common usage of spell checkers I see don't meaningfully change the tone of the text. The LLM-powered spell checker, akin to a different human writing the email for the employee, is unacceptable. It has perverse incentives and outcomes. Minor touch ups are one thing, but at some point it becomes deception.
I think there is only deception if you believe the original words written in the original tone was the intended message (or I suppose if the intent of the communication is to demonstrate your personal ability to write in a given style). If a coworker does something extremely stupid that harms our project and I sit down at my desk and write an angry email full of invective and spit and fury, save it in my drafts and go for a walk, then come back and rewrite the email to be constructive and professional, have I been deceptive? When I started the email I certainly intended to write the things I wrote in that first draft. But sending that would have been counter productive.
I might even still think my co-worker is a flaming moron who shouldn't be allowed out of the house unsupervised. But if I know that sending that in an email isn't going to solve anything and just make things worse, am I being deceptive if I remove that sentence from the email?
Or consider an alternative scenario. I attended a conference where a speaker made a reference to the Alamo. The speaker was older, and the reference would have been the same sort of "make a stand" reference any number of speakers would have made over and over in the 90's. But after their talk, I was talking with some younger attendees, folks born after the turn of the millennium. Among them, the speaker's metaphor was a hot topic. Specifically the "yikes" factor of referencing the Alamo in any way that in any way implied the defenders should have been looked up to. The speaker's intended message was lost in the specific details of their chosen metaphor because the words which they absolutely intended to speak did not hold the same meaning for the audience to which they were spoken. If some hypothetical AI speech editor existed where you could punch in the age range of your intended audience and it would edit out metaphors and references that would land wrong with the audience, is that being deceptive or is that good editing and "reading the room"?
> One of them had a guy ask the glasses to describe what was in front of his face, and then he remarked “wow that’s accurate” (there are people skateboarding). The guy wasn’t blind. His use of the glasses made little sense.
On the other hand, this is a pretty common scenario: user is surprised when AI gets something right :) Not sure it’s the best showcase of a product, though …
Yesterday I was walking in Greece and saw a sign I couldn't read so asked my Meta glasses and it gave me a translation and short explanation quickly, which was very helpful.
But generally, yes the uses aren't there. In the Apple AI video, the worst is that the 'more professional' text, actually reads much less professional.
If someone in a business situation sends you an AI generated email (and it's obviously AI it's so easy to tell) it makes it seem like they are unable to write English properly, giving the opposite impression than intended.
> Yesterday I was walking in Greece and saw a sign I couldn't read so asked my Meta glasses and it gave me a translation and short explanation quickly, which was very helpful.
Like other attempts at AI wearables like the Rabbit and Humane pins, I think that falls under "maybe useful but why wouldn't I just do the same thing with the phone that I'm carrying anyway".
- AR is very promising for both work and play, but is worthless shit if you have to hold a device to use it. Instantly 100x better if you've got hypothetical near-future non-terrible AR glasses on most of the day.
- Half of what people use the Web for is looking up trivia that would have been too high-cost to look up before, to bother with (most of the other half is posting on social media about it). Glasses further lower the cost of looking up many categories of trivia, making even more trivial pieces of knowledge cheap enough to look up. On a revealed-preference basis, this seems to be something people really like and find irritating when denied—nobody used to feel an itch when they couldn't find an answer to some fleeting trivial question that entered their mind. Once exposed to the Web, and even more so when smartphones were introduced and the Web became something you carried everywhere, they do, and it'll be the same for answering questions about stuff they're looking at, once used to glasses.
- The use case of capturing otherwise-missed (getting out the phone is too slow) fleeting once-ever moments is going to be very compelling for people.
Yes, Google Translate has been able to do this for a while now, but I still find the experience very yanky and high friction so that I don't do it on a whim, usually.
Everything-translating AR glasses would have been something I'd have really appreciated on a trip to Japan, for example.
> In the Apple AI video, the worst is that the 'more professional' text, actually reads much less professional.
The original text is:
> Hey J,
> Been thinking, this project might need a bit of zhuhzing. But you're the big enchilada.
> Holler back
followed by the sender's first name in lower case surrounded by flexed bicep emoji.
The AI rewritten text keeps the "Hey J,". It changes the rest to
> Upon further consideration, I believe this project may require some refinement. However, you are the most capable individual to undertake this task.
> Please let me know your thoughts.
> Best regards,
followed by the sender's first name capitalized and with no emoji.
I don't see how the second could be considered less professional than the first.
From the other comments here it seems like some people may be seeing different ads when they follow the links, possibly depending on their location. The text above is what was in the ad I get to from the link in the article. Are you getting something different?
Honestly I wouldn’t hesitate to steal and break any meta ray bands I see on the street in real life. I don’t want to see that creepy always recording without permission kind of shit normalised.
Not trying to be snarky, I think I very much understand your reaction to this constantly monitored and surveilled world we're in. I think it's arguable that these types of glasses will make it worse too.
But people are recording without permission on their phones since several years now - what has been your reaction there?
I'm not a very confrontational person, so I tend to grumble and say nothing.
This is what always happens when you have a technology and then desperately try to find problems to solve with it. Rather than starting with a problem and then applying the most appropriate technology to solve it. The exact same thing happened with Blockchain, but "AI" has about 100x more hype behind it.
I think people present day do not understand how to really use AI.. understand how it can benefit their life. The commercial the OP speaks and the ad agency sounds lame as they arent helping.
Personally Ive been enjoying wearing my Ray Bans for the past year and have used them to do things no other glasses can like...
- Translate.... was in Canada recently and a sign about Jasper the town i was in was in French. I asked Meta to translate it... it took a pic and audibly translated it for me.
- Was in Harpers Ferry WV on an overlook ..looking down into the town of Harpers Ferry which has a huge church which i have no idea it's name yet ask Meta what church is that over there. Took a pic and told me.
- Was in line at HersheyPark up on a platform and my friend wondered how many people you think are in line so i asked Meta and it took a pic and gave me an estimate.
As with the Apple ads, I remain unconvinced these are benefits. Translation, yes, but your last two examples feel oddly isolating and dehumanizing. Like, estimating the number of people in a line is a trivial task, and something fun to discuss and argue about with your friends! If your friend had the glasses to, do you think it would have come up in conversation at all or would they just ask theirs?
I dunno, I'm picturing a future with everyone standing around absorbed in their own devices (not too different from today) but where we struggle to ask each other normal questions due to offloading our collective intelligence and social skills to the cloud. Destined to become Daphne totally reliant on glasses to interact with the world around us.
I'm probably overly dramatic here. You're out having fun at a park with friends! I'm just trying to imagine how future generations will interact with this tech, particularly the youth who won't know a world without.
It enhanced my conversation as when both people do not know something you are looking at and or discussing you can now find the answer quickly via glasses on your face.
We all use Google to find knowledge/answers but most are not pulling out our phones during conversations cause that's rude. Yet it's not rude to get the answer from your glasses you are wearing on your face and still present in the conversation your having as well people will think wow that's cool (per my experience).
Yeah I don't think you're still present in the conversation while taking a photo and listening to or reading an explanation of what you're looking at. You might think it's less interruptive than pulling out a phone, but your attention is on the smart glasses. People think they can multi task too. I can see when someone just zones out during a conversation and they don't even realize it. I'm gonna be annoyed when I see you looking at the shit coming out of your glasses.
I appreciate you might find value in these things, but each example I read just gets less and less compelling. Translation does seem mildly useful, the other things feels like information I can live with or without.
E.g. these aren't burning problems in my life. Even the translation, I'm happy to just be in the dark, or take a phone pic and translate if I really really need to.
Having everpresent AI tech on my face doesn't seem worth it if these are the kinds of problems I get solved.
Well if you use sunglasses and pull out your phone to take pics, videos and see the time ... using the glasses to do all those things (even without having your phone on you) makes a lot more sense (quicker and easier).
My problem with all three of these features (besides the terrible privacy impact that other commenters have already addressed) is: As the end user, how do you know and verify the results are actually correct? How do you know the road sign was translated correctly? How do you know that the name of the church was actually correct? How do you know that the estimate given was even close?
Your examples were all pretty low-stakes, so I guess "it doesn't matter if it's correct" is fine for them. But what if you actually ended up relying on an answer to be correct and it wasn't? Would you independently verify the correctness, or just blindly operate on bad info?
How do you know any information you get from a source that you can’t personally and independently verify is correct? How do we know a tourist guide book is correct? How do we know our language dictionary is correct? You don’t. People will need to learn to what degree they can actually trust a given source of information and decide how much the risk is worth taking. We do this all the time today, and every time new technology comes along there’s always an adjustment period as we sort out the boundaries of trust (see also people driving off roads and into ponds when GPS was new). The danger to me is not that it can be wrong, it’s that people don’t yet understand it can be wrong. That’s not helped by AI boosters trying to use AI in inappropriate ways and situations, but it’s also not helped by AI doomers that treat every failing of the new technology as proof it’s worthless and will never be useful. Both extremes are speed running a “boy who cried wolf” scenario for losing public trust in what they have to say.
We all seem to trust Google and the first search result link is the truth (i guess) yet now they are showing their AI results... are we trusting those the same as the first search result links we have always?
Personally i think those who are concerned about whether it's correct or not are not ones to jump all into new technology yet will when enough of their friends, family and co-workers have done so. There they find that level of trust they seek.
If we have trusted Google all the years then the AI that becomes the most trusted becomes the next Google. Open AI needs to create their own smart devices (phone and or glasses) and with that they could become the next Google. The information GPT provides me seems correct and matches Google's AI. Siri even with 18.1 is still terrible ... just asked it what day is November 9th it forwarded me to a Google search (lame).
Are those glasses with camera always on sticking it into other people's faces, just like before Google glass had it?
That's an idiotic toy to use among other people, and I am keeping things polite here. Unless you ask each of them if its OK they will be recorded and evaluated by Meta company (and who knows who else).
Your convenience stops right where rights of me and my family starts. Bring it next to any small kids and expect some well deserved non-nice feedback coming your way.
The privacy issue in time Im sure Meta and or Apple will figure out (i have some ideas to fix that) .. they need to cause that's half of peoples reaction to them while the other half dont care.
I could care less about other people I do not know I am using the glasses to capture my life (not theirs) and for
- Sunglasses
- To listen to music and take phone calls
- To take pics and videos of what Im experiencing in my life not others
- To enhance my conversations as pulling out my phone is rude to get the answer in a social conversation .. using my glasses no one has said anything rather thinking it's cool
> The privacy issue in time Im sure Meta and or Apple will figure out (i have some ideas to fix that) .. they need to cause that's half of peoples reaction to them while the other half dont care.
They don't need to figure it out, they just have to wait.
People holding their camera phones up everywhere and (maybe! You can't know for sure!) recording stuff used to be off-putting in about the same way, but we got over it within a few years. Ditto various other socially-shitty things, like talking on a phone in public or using nearly-invisible earbuds that make it hard for people to tell where your attention is or even notice that it might be somewhere else.
I kinda wish we hadn't gotten over those things, but we did, and having watched it happen a few times I'm sure we will again for this.
The problem with "AI" is that when it is well integrated, and useful, it is often invisible to the user. Many people, for example, benefit from automatic (and instant) transcriptions in live Zoom meetings. This is pretty much complete magic -- and yet, boring. You don't notice it. You focus on the result, which you need, rather than the fact that it's "AI."
This is my current belief as well. Ive designed many features with AI models and it wasn't until we recently branded those features with an AI personified name that users (and wall street) noticed.
Sounds like a repeat of blockchain hype. Biggest threat here is replacing the cultural zeitgeist of "let me google that for you" with "let me GPT that for you".
I feel the ads I've seen are precisely what you say. I will say this though I have a kid on the spectrum and if I could teach her how to integrate her thoughts with the glasses it may help her in social settings. But for others who simply already know I, like you, don't see the value.
AI has so much potential, but sometimes the consumer products come across as a bit forced, like they’re still looking for their purpose. Overall, I didn't really like Meta's presentation this year. It felt kind of strange...
We've been working with it for over a year now and I'm of the mind that AI, in it's current state, really isn't a tool meant for an end user to interact with.
It feels like it's the most useful when it's transparent and you -- as an end user -- don't know that there's an LLM in the process. The best use cases seem to be those that don't require an end consumer to directly interact with an AI, but their journey through some process is assisted by an AI instead.
The problem is that a lot of the marketing -- like these examples and Google's very misguided "Write me a letter" to an Olympian -- exists because companies keep trying to make "fetch" happen; the AI becomes the journey instead of being an assistant in that journey.
Amazon's Rufus is a prime example. It's tucked away as a button that one has to activate explicitly. But it would almost be better if it could just clean up the search results when I do a search and a bunch of junk is returned.
But it seems like Apple could make "fetch" happen in the past. Their ads were very aspirational, almost like you could become an Olympian if you just owned a Macintosh. These ads though, they're not about "you can do more". They're about "you can care less".
These ads feel like YouTube Short sketches. A little absurd, and a bit of a fantasy land. Would people really interact this way - word for word?
I think being aspirational with AI can feel a bit in-humane. A lot of people seeing this experience a bit of cringe when the topic of AI is brought up. Maybe they’re worried about their job, that technology is too pervasive - whatever it is, they’re uncomfortable. It’s an easier pill to swallow if I can laugh at it. Apple seems to be picking up on that in these ads.
Eh, I mean Apple has had its flops over the years like any company.
Their ads were good, but all of their successful products were of high quality when evaluated objectively, in addition to having been marketed well.
There's basically two places where I see it as being useful -- as part of an automation pipeline where you need some translation layer from natural language to structured data or vice versa, and when the user knows it's an LLM and _wants to interact with an LLM_. I never want to see LLM generated content as an end user when I haven't specifically asked for it.
The use case our startup is working is one more that I think really works well: why are you showing me these results?
Our product basically takes any search output and uses our internal knowledge graph for our clients to "explain" to the customer "why these results for this query/question?"
We use the same knowledge graph to then extend our client's native search results with much more relevant results using the LLM to better match results to the semantic intent of the question.
It's all quite nifty and transparent; the user wouldn't know that there's an AI involved without labeling it as AI generated.
I absolutely despise rufus. I used to be able to search questions and reviews instantaneously. Now I need to wait for rufus to poorly summarize everything, tap at least 2-3 times, and then get to see the search results. Talk about piss poor UX.
Reminds me of Austin Powers where he has a TV in his car in the 70s to talk with his boss then wakes up in modern times (the 90s) and has shitty, fractured streaming video. "Skating where the puck is going" is a great strategy for businesses - not so much for end users.
It's similar to how ~all phone calls sound worse than they used to before the phone system was digitized. For a while, you could only get audio quality and delay that bad by using a cell phone (actually, those went through a couple phases of differently-bad audio quality, as the tech "advanced")! Then they brought that joyful new experience to land line phones, so everyone could have it.
It's cheaper, though. I assume. The main effect of which is that it's finally cheap enough to be economical to phone-spam our grandparents and scam them out of their savings... hm, yeah, never mind, it's all down-side.
Yeah, a really basic and relevant example might be if I have a meeting coming up on my calendar, an agent can pull info from my LinkedIn about the participants, check their socials (so I can make small talk and chat), research info about some of the topics in the meeting (e.g. pull stats, recent articles, etc.) and summarize it to prepare me for the meeting.
Like, that's actually useful but probably not super sexy.
This is a good example of where we should have stigma attached to AI: a partner showed me their CRM that summarized my profile for them. It was creepy in how far into my online life it had dug. It also said, along with the creepy things, that I was "risk adverse" and "only acted when I had complete information" ... as a startup CTO this is both laughably wrong and could have career implications.
LLM's can be tuned to do what you want it to do. It can be as simple as "summarize these notes" to as questionable as "rate this candidate for this job".
The former is mostly just a reduction in task and condensation of information. The latter is the opposite: an extrapolation of some conclusion based on given information.
This is not the fault of an LLM, but the people using it and the use cases that have been designed. An AI assistant that just gave me the facts (condense) rather than generate its own conclusions (expand, extrapolate) is fine, IMO.
I get what you are saying but, the same way ad targeting can be used to "serve me more interesting ads" and "surveillance" can be used to find missing children and sex trafficing victims, it isn't being used that way across the board.
This article is a prime example of why tech literate people aren’t inherently strong marketers for tech.
What does the Ubuntu ad say to the user? How does it capture someone’s attention? None of the ad tells me why this is something worth paying attention to versus other distros or OSs, it doesn’t even tell me it’s about the OS at all unless I already know what Ubuntu is.
Contrast with the Apple ads that tell you exactly what they want in the same time frame. Apple ads have always been tongue in cheek, and have always had a portion of people rubbed the wrong way because they took it too literally.
But at the end of the day, barring the few missteps like the crush ad, they seem to work for the target audience.
I find a lot of technical folk seem to struggle with “I don’t like it therefore it must be bad” and would have failed basically any media analysis class in college as a result. Similarly, the author falls into the “I like Ubuntu and this ad” and hasn’t stopped to think about how it plays to anyone but himself. It’s a really self centered outlook and one that means they’d never be able to market to others.
I remember iPods being advertised as, like, very cool. Remember all the ads with, like, the silhouettes dancing on colorful backgrounds? I can see thinking these ads were a bit over the top and silly, like a corporate ad exec’s idea of what is cool, but they definitely intended to be cool.
The people in these new ads are lame and clearly Apple intends to portray them as lame.
Apple have a range of ads to appeal to a range of people.
Even back then they had the Mac vs PC or a variety of other ads too that weren’t “cool” but were funny. Tongue in cheek ads have been in their DNA since forever.
Take for example the new Mac mini ad which is cute
One could argue that they’ve not had anything as iconic as the silhouette commercial. I’d agree with that, but I disagree with the position that their ads today don’t show cool people or that ads back then didn’t show “lame” people.
Eh, but even in the Find Your Friends ad, where the guy is pretty nerdy and not conventionally cool (I mean he’s going to some cosplay festival), it is still portraying the main character as kind of… somebody you wouldn’t mind being, right?
Like he’s doing something nerdy, dressing up in cosplay, but he’s doing it well, he’s got friends, businessmen get out of his way as he strides down the sidewalk. Some of the people he interact with don’t get him, but he doesn’t care. He’s nerdy but he’s living his best life.
The Mac Mini ad is cute, and it portrays the Mac Mini as a sort of… little computer with over-the-top bravado. It is sort of self-effacing and tongue in cheek, like clearly the little computer is over-compensating for its small size with attitude. But it works somehow. Partly because it is the device, I think. I’m not imagining being the computer, I’m imagining being the user, so the over-eager awkwardness of the computer doesn’t reflect poorly on the “me” character. Partly I think because the computer is like… awkward but not unpleasant.
There’s a big difference between being nerdy/awkward but embracing it, and being nerdy/awkward and a loser.
Some of these new ads look more like the latter to me. The Bella Ramsey ones, IMO, they are not so bad, like she’s doing a “forgetful/absent minded but still successful” character and it kinda works. But one with the guy who can’t write a professional email and the lady who forgot a gift but wants to sneak into the nice moment, they didn’t work for me. You don’t want to be those characters, right?
Coolness is about being comfortable and confident being yourself these days. Not just outward shows of “coolness” That’s apples brand and has always been.
It’s the “you’re weird, you’re quirky, you’re different, you’re you” of being cool, not the jock/rockstar cool. The iPod commercials just happened to illicit both. But look at most Apple ads through the years and they have a consistent corporate theme.
That’s what is cool. Being confident to meet your friends at a convention in costume is cool.
Idk who said it, but it’s the “personal computer”. The person is key.
> What does the Ubuntu ad say to the user? How does it capture someone’s attention?
Exactly. Contrary to the article, it doesn't tell a story at all. It's just some slick-ish graphics with a few words overlayed on top. They're nice words. But they didn't really embrace "show, don't tell".
> barring the few missteps like the crush ad
Ideally I should be one of the people offended but the ad but I actually liked it and the concept. Of course ymmv
> it doesn’t even tell me it’s about the OS at all unless I already know what Ubuntu is.
Try watching the iPhone ads assuming you don't know what Apple does nor what an iPhone is. They make absolutely no sense.
Ads are targeted at a market, and these in particular assume some degree of familiarity. I guess the Ubuntu one in particular is to celebrate the 20 years, so it's a different vibe from a sheer call to action spot.
Which iPhone ad can you point me to that doesn’t have a story around a feature at the least?
Also since you bring up familiarity, does that Ubuntu ad tell you which version it’s about? What’s it telling even a seasoned Ubuntu veteran?
And lastly, there’s a much larger percent of the population that knows what an iPhone is but even if they didn’t, it’s in the name. The ads end with iPhone, by Apple and show the product.
Based on that ad, what is Ubuntu? A desktop? An OS? A computer company?
Is that a story or one single scene ? Was there someone on the phone ? Is the text bubble that person answering ? or is it just movie magic like so many over ads?
It only makes sense as an ad if you know the product, otherwise you wouldn't even understand it's the phone doing it all.
We're in agreement that the Ubuntu movie isn't selling it either. My point was that it's probably not aimed at that, you aren't suppose to rush to Ubuntu's site to download an ISO on the spot after watching it, it's probably more of a branding act than a push to action. Precisely to seed the Ubuntu name perhaps ?
The story is you ask your phone and it tells you. The rest of the details are irrelevant to it.
You don’t need to know how it happens.
And that’s fair about the Ubuntu ad. I think the issue is the Ubuntu ad isn’t trying to be anything much. But the author has positioned it on a podium against the Apple ads where it doesn’t belong. They’re not trying to do the same thing at all, and so framing them that way isn’t fair to Ubuntu
I've learned not to trust my taste in marketing for the same point you make in your first sentence.
While watching those ads i considered a kids perspective. It bugs bunny looney tunes stuff. Its silly, cartoonish, and sticky. Its a very good ad.
Side-point: imagine if this clearly cartoonish ad did encourage "cheating at life". whats the downside? Those people are still putting in as much effort as they would have regardless. only now maybe they have read an example of a good email or a summary which could encourage them to learn more later. or maybe its just fun having a world where lazy people are trying to skate by a la The Dude
Yeah, I think the Apple ads also reveal changes in the meta level of human communication. You cannot know for certain, that the other person is "being real", if that makes sense.
That Ubuntu commercial left me with a weird akwardness, not knowing what or who it was for. It said "For you", which was the best part and I think it means I am in control of things, but that message might be lost with everybody not familiar with IT/Linux/Open Source. I don't know what certificates it was talking about though.
> I’ve watched that little animation several times, and they tell a better story in a minute twenty-five than all of Apple’s AI commercials combined.
If I showed that video to someone who isn't steeped in decades of Linux, I suspect they'd ask me what an Ubuntu is. As compared to the "schlub writes an email" video, which was compelling, funny, and actually shows the product they're marketing.
> As compared to the "schlub writes an email" video, which was compelling, funny
OP is right, though. What you're calling "compelling" and "funny" seems very much also like messages telling you to that it's ok to lie to everyone around you including your family and friends. That's not a funny message to me. It's an appalling one.
Absolutely nobody is going to see these ads and to "Ah, well, now that I have seen this ad I will start lying".
That person is already lying about stuff. We've all done it.
I think the real indictment against Apple (and AI more broadly) is that this is the best use case for their supposedly revolutionary technology that they could come up with.
I don't want to interact with people who lie. I don't want to interact with people who say lying is a good thing. Apple is saying lying is a good thing ("genius") in some of these ads.
> Absolutely nobody is going to see these ads and to "Ah, well, now that I have seen this ad I will start lying".
I don’t think anyone is claiming these ads will get people to start lying. The claim is that lying to your loved ones is good and makes you smart is indeed the message these ads are sending.
People do lie. But they don’t usually feel good about it. These ads send the message that not only is that good, but Apple Intelligence will make you even better at lying.
> What you're calling "compelling" and "funny" seems very much also like messages telling you to that it's ok to lie to everyone around you including your family and friends.
Eh, "lovable but lazy dumbass forgot something and has to lie their way out of it" is a pretty standard trope of boomer sitcom humour.
Just imagine these ads, but the person using AI was Homer Simpson.
Right—what "story"? "The appearance of desktop computers has changed over the period of time that Ubuntu has existed"? What does this thing do for me? Especially, what does it do for me that other platforms don't, or that I might not expect it would do for me?
It was exactly like every other enterprise animated product video. Random words with some electronic music. I was actually expecting "synergy" to pop up.
The most annoying part when I worked in marketing was explaining to people that it’s not about the their opinion, it’s about profit. One person’s take is worthless.
Can I just point out the self gazing nature of this post?
Short form: I made an Advertisement in AI, I promote it by making shitting all over Apple (get more viewership using Apple) and then finish off to say I watched my own video in amazement 5 times.
What a beautiful self promotional world we live in.
It's funny the video is celebrating 20 years of Ubuntu yet the editing style and music choice feels like it should have been for the 10 year anniversary. Real early-2010s chic.
I think the write up seems to bring the indirect point that AI has limited use cases currently. So instead of taking the traditional Apple approach with showcasing the technical aspects of the product (an example being Apple has highlighted photography and video a lot in the last few generations of iPhone), instead Apple falls back on cheeky ads, which to be fair, are also not new to Apple marketing.
I do think that Apple's "white lies" series of ads are awkward, however. Apple has seemingly paused ads around privacy and security and are now targeting Apple Intelligence - they seem to be somewhat at opposite ends of the target market in a way.
It does feel as though Apple is conflicted here and I'm curious to see how it plays out for them. I'm, personally not a fan of the current generation or implementation of AI and do not want to use it. If AI could hook apps for more hands free operations at a deeper level I could see usability improvements for hands free environments which might be nice. Beyond that I really don't want it.
> I'm, personally not a fan of the current generation or implementation of AI and do not want to use it.
Why not? It gives vastly better than human performance across a wide range of problems. Just this morning I asked Chat GPT to find me the smallest set of positive integers whose median is 2 and whose average is 3.75, and it just spit out the correct answer instantly. That would have been an enormous pain in the ass to figure out how to do manually, but instead I got it done while in the middle of packing my kids' lunches for school.
In case anyone is curious how you would solve this manually, here it is. In what follows assume all lists are sorted from low to high.
For a list of just one or two integers the median and mean are the same so we can rule those out.
For a list of 3 integers the average is their sum divided by 3. But 3 times the average we want (3.75) is 11.25 which is not an integer. That eliminates lists of length 3.
On to lists of length 4. In a sorted list of length 4 the median is the average of the middle two numbers. The only pairs of 2 positive integers that average 2 are {2, 2} and {1, 3}. That gives us these templates for possible lists:
{a, 1, 3, b}
{a, 2, 2, b}
Remember, these are sorted and they are positive integers. In the first then the only possible value for a is 1. In the second a could be 1 or 2. Our templates are now
{1, 1, 3, b}
{1, 2, 2, b}
{2, 2, 2, b}
For 4 positive integers to have a mean of 3.75 their sum must be 15. Setting b to make the sums 15 we get these as the possible solutions:
{1, 1, 3, 10}
{1, 2, 2, 10}
{2, 2, 2, 9}
A quick glance to make sure that the 4th number didn't end up smaller than the 3rd number, and we are done.
> and it just spit out the correct answer instantly.
What did it spit out? Because there is more than one solution (or none, if unhelpfully pedantic).
It's certainly possible with practice to quickly mentally figure out that 3.75 * 4 is the least whole multiple, so n = 4.
Quick and dirty 2,2 makes a possible median and so 1, 2, 2, 10 and 2,2,2,9 are clearly solutions, since x+y= 15-4 where 0<x≤2, y>2 is not hard to do mentally. I struggle to call this a hard or enormous mental calculation. (Not missing the other solution, just acknowledging it takes an extra step - apparently it is hard for ChatGPT!)
I'm not terribly impressed by that last one especially for nearly 2 minutes of "thinking". I also don't love that it keeps saying, set, set... A helpful tutor should at least gently point out these are not strictly sets. There's no solution of a set of positive integers that solves that problem.
If your GPT didn't give those 3 solutions right off the bat (I could not get mine to) and clarify they are not formally sets, it is a type of failure. Sure you can argue that a better prompt would improve it, but this is a problem, non experts putting in ill-formed or flawed prompts and not getting useful feedback where an expert human would be more helpful. A good human will tell you it's a multiset and in general there isn't a unique solution so the problem could be phrased better.
I asked o1-preview to make the question more rigorous and it came up with "Find all sets...".
Because, ultimately, I'd like to continue to think and solve on my own. If I want to leverage a chat model, which I do, I can do that very easily on my own hardware. I don't want it so far shoved down my phones innards that I'm paying for hardware that is useless outside that use case.
Imagine the next 30 years when the majority of the population has no clue on how to function without cloud connected models answering questions on the daily. Very Black Mirror.
I also don't trust any of the frontier model vendors at this point so there's also that. Especially Sam Altman / OpenAI.
>Imagine the next 30 years when the majority of the population has no clue on how to function without cloud connected models answering questions on the daily.
The basis of this argument has probably existed for as long as humans have been able to self reflect.
If technology can very reliably do something I need to do better than I can do, why would I spend energy doing it myself.
> If technology can very reliably do something I need to do better than I can do, why would I spend energy doing it myself.
In reality, you're spending more energy. That being, yet, another problem with this use case [0].
Also, did it really "do it better"? Maybe it did it better than OP could, by their own admission. But they didn't learn anything in the process nor did they seem to consider the validity. Will it be right next time? How does one know? As indicated above - it doesn't appear to be a stretch that it could have just as easily given the wrong answer. [1]
"In an age of information, ignorance is a choice." — Donny Miller
"They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." - Plato
Forget about lying, this is just amorally stupid and pandering.
I find the hypothetical universe where that guy is going to get anywhere good suggesting what his boss should “undertake” unbelievable. (Also not a good demo).
And we’ve been in this GPT world nearly 2 years. The boss is obviously supposed to be smart, he’s a black guy in a suit after all. Is this the first time he’s ever received something that was obviously from an AI. What’s he confused about?
> The boss is obviously supposed to be smart, he’s a black guy in a suit after all. Is this the first time he’s ever received something that was obviously from an AI. What’s he confused about?
Ironically, you're doing the same thing as the actor in the skit - pretending to be confused, for effect.
Obviously, the boss is used to receiving unprofessional responses from the employee in question. Obviously, the boss is thrown as a result. Obviously, this is a contrived situation for the purpose of humor that in real life wouldn't go like this.
The idea that a shlub like this would only just now for the first time be using an LLM like this is what is unbelievable. And as a joke it is simply stale. I get it, Apple has to at least pretend to themselves like they are groundbreaking in these things that are now years old.
It's cringe because Apple thinks this is a novel premise for humor.
Again: It's unbelievable that someone (like this) would be using an LLM to compose an email to their boss for the first time.
He's a lazy fuck office stiff (yet still manages to warrant an iMac desktop), you're telling me he's just now starting to use an LLM to compose emails? Sure, whatever.
If you think this ad is clever and funny you are entitled to that, you're not going to convince me it isn't idiotic and the joke is old.
Unless the message was Apple AI: the new thing for oblivious dipshits or the recently recovered comatose.
Even the bastion of pretentious journalism Fast Company has this headline: "In Apple’s new ads for AI tools, we’re all total idiots"
> Ironically, you're doing the same thing as the actor in the skit - pretending to be confused, for effect.
If you're intuitive enough to conclude that an otherwise inarticulate douchebag probably used an LLM to compose an email, why would you
"pretend" to be confused? Makes no sense. There's nothing remarkable about using an LLM to write an email.
> Again: It's unbelievable that someone (like this) would be using an LLM to compose an email to their boss for the first time.
There's always a first time.
> He's a lazy fuck office stiff (yet still manages to warrant an iMac desktop), you're telling me he's just now starting to use an LLM to compose emails?
I know plenty of "lazy fuck" people not yet using LLMs. Having it built in to the device is likely to change that.
> Even the bastion of pretentious journalism Fast Company has this headline: "In Apple’s new ads for AI tools, we’re all total idiots"
That's fairly standard for ads. Cleaning supplies are sold on a "so easy dads can use it" sort of basis. Prepared food is sold on a "because you can't cook, obviously" basis. etc. I have managers at work who ask me to write client emails for them, even, because I'm a pretty good writer.
> If you're intuitive enough to conclude that an otherwise inarticulate douchebag probably used an LLM to compose an email, why would you "pretend" to be confused?
The actor is pretending. The character is shocked - for comic effect - that such a nice email came from someone who never sends professional ones. In the real world the response is obviously more likely to be "ah, they used ChatGPT this time", but if you expect realism in ads...
This really isn't as complicated to understand as you're making it.
This is just running defense for the reality distortion field.
> I know plenty of "lazy fuck" people not yet using LLMs. Having it built in to the device is likely to change that.
Sorry I just don't live in this world. Everybody and their dog uses LLM. Especially the professional crowd affluent enough to afford Apple devices. The untapped market here is tiny.
I use an iPhone, a MacBook, I use a HomePod as part of a home automation system. I'm not an anti Apple fanboy. This shit is completely stupid and underwhelming.
> That's fairly standard for ads.
Now you're just being a condescending prat. I don't need a lesson in the obvious. I told you it's stupid for specific reasons that you simply care to not acknowledge, fine. Think whatever you want, you obviously love these ads. Great.
And since when was, other things are shitty too so this must be good even a worthwhile observation?
> Prepared food is sold on a "because you can't cook, obviously"
But, if you could actually cook that particular day, you wouldn't be using the prepared food. (Whether you can cook any day or not is another thing). As someone who cooks regularly, neither prepared food nor McDonalds are beneath me.
On the otherhand, you obviously could easily be using an LLM for the last two years to write emails. So this is dumb.
As a dad, I'm ok with "dads are stupid" tropes if there are other redeeming qualities. Your Apple ads have none.
I can relate with someone that can't cook. All I want to do with that Walter is punch him in the face. And, no, the knowing acknowledgement from token Asian doesn't improve things.
My prediction, like the Google ad, that ad is going to tank like the turd it is.
Last month the moral panic in the 24 hour mainstream (pretty much every major media outlet in the US) news cycle was the environmental impact of LLM for writing emails, a bottle of water per email, think of the kittens, etc. Not to comment on the merits of this reporting, but among the middle and upper middle class US this is common, mainstream stuff. This is Apple's demographic, we're not talking $100 Android shit phones.
> Satanic child sacrifices were not a widespread practice, though.
You got me. This isn't debate club. If you want to think Apple's incumbent base isn't heavily using (or actively avoiding) LLMs either ChatGPT and Gemini or the 10k other B2B remixes, you can think that. And for the ones that aren't are they just holding out for Apple's flacid offering?
I don't know what to tell you. I work in midwest academic medicine, not tech, I'm not in the SV bubble. The people that don't use this stuff for either clinical (the only fucking rule I need in ad block seems to be freed.ai) or research work are still very aware of it, they're not waiting for Apple. It isn't a friction issue. People working in management consulting, it is used heavily because there is at least a desire to provide a professional sounding voice to customers. The thing is that in the real world J (the draft email should have said nigga, that would have been funny) knows Walter is still an idiot, yet Walter is still employed so what possible benefit is there to using an LLM. For internal stuff, you know you're not fooling any body, that is often the reason you don't use it. Not because you can't, but because it's pointless.
I don't think Apple is marketing a compelling product with that effort. The people that really want state of the art wordsmithing have had options, and what is Apple giving the naysayers? Is this better than ChatGPT, that example in the ad sure as hell isn't.
Maybe you're right that Apple is really reaching out with a compelling novel email writing product to their base, I'm just not convinced.
I don't use HomeKit as a core, but I use it because it integrates with iDevices. I am very much looking forward to Siri being less of a dumbass. Still think this marketing effort is lame.
I just get a sense from all this AI marketing hype is that AI is yet another grifter tool. The Ubuntu video was meh and I dont think it worked well to describe the story. A better video would be to show perhaps someone getting their kid an ubuntu laptop and how it shaped their mindset and future. Or Ubuntu on your grandma's computer and now we can enjoy coffee instead of fixing computers... etc etc.
...the target audience, it wouldn't work. Same with the AI stuff.
Show that to someone with no understanding of Apple and it's products, or AI, and you'll have someone equally confused.
The understanding here is that in both cases the marketing is targeted at a certain group.
More interestingly, you admit that one story promotes interest in the product, while the other promotes the viewer being, as you put it, a schlub.
Maybe you can explain why you being a schlub is better than wanting to learn more about a product (or how quickly you try to pretend like that's not what you mean/said and move the goal post, lol)?
> Show that to someone with no understanding of Apple and it's products, or AI, and you'll have someone equally confused.
Apple is selling a magical button that unprofessional idiots can press to be perceived as professional. Who in the world is going to be confused by that?
I was already bothered by the Apple Watch marketing. The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too.
The messaging that AI is for lying is another big yikes. Apple marketing department has lost the magic.
As someone whose watch called 911 for me when I was in an accident, and who got a call when my mother fell, fear or not there are real, tangible benefits that probably can't be overstated.
I just wish they would cut down on false positives though. As a volunteer firefighter, I don't think I've responded to an "Apple Crash Detection" that was an actual car crash or fall or something...
To be fair, since the Apple Watch introduced heart rate monitoring and other "medical" features, there have been numerous reported cases of it saving a persons life, from detecting heart conditions to detecting falls.
What do you mean by "net"? Are you suggesting that the Apple Watch actually causes people's deaths, too—in numbers large enough to counterbalance the lives it's saved?
Apple's ecosystem is all about replacing other products, devices, and services with features of Apple devices. See: all those photos of "here's all the devices an iPhone replaces" from like 15 years ago.
I'm not sure how else they advertise that now your Apple devices replace OnStar and Life Alert, than advertising kinda the same way that those did (but less lame, hopefully).
>The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too.
Is there a specific advertisement you're referring to here, or just all apple watch advertisements? I haven't really seen any ads for the apple watch, and I am curious if this is an exaggeration.
I'm assuming by "literally" you meant "metaphorically", but I'd like to look up which ad you are referencing to get an idea of what you mean.
Edit: I've watched the ads. They are not in great taste, in my opinion, however they also did not tell me I would literally die if I don't buy an Apple Watch.
I remember people expressing similar frustrations with the crash detection features on iPhones, and I still don't understand the issue. These new safety features are helpful and have helped save lives. Scaling back the ad copy to "maybe you'd want to use this, just in case, though it's not a guarantee of anything, so whatever," as it seems the complaints are indicating, is not how any other life-saving features on any device have ever been sold. Those old LifeAlert "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials didn't pull their punch and say "Eh, maybe you'll want this for your grandparent."
The blog entry suffers from congratulating the mediocre Ubuntu ad, but it's right about the vile Apple ads.
The Apple ads are dystopian and revulsive. She really pulls out her phone while talking to a person and then lies to her face. A wife and mother forgets dad's birthday and smugly "gifts" him 50 auto-playing photos, as shown on her phone screen?
Ubuntu nothwistanding, I found the Apple ads quite offensive.
Ads tell you what the company thinks about it's target audience and clearly Apple thinks we're all just a bunch of bumbling fools that can't do anything without our phones.
Compared to this Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, which frames everything as something that can help you out and is fun and quirky: https://youtu.be/GZ-xGBTvtO4
I've been using Mac as my workhorse my entire career, switched from Android to iPhone recently. These ads are actually making me reconsider what my next hardware upgrades are going to be.
The consumer use cases of "AI" right now are mostly about cheating at work that one is still really supposed to do themselves.
Maybe the ad people tried to come up with relatively palatable ones?
Note that no one is cheating on their school homework, which is a huge consumer use case category. And no creative work was detectably plagiarized (art, code). Though they still did do employment slacking/incompetence gaining advantage, by increasing deceptive and time-wasting noise for everyone else.
Or maybe that's the actual use cases of their target audience?
If you get work done while using AI you clearly aren’t cheating, that’s what they pay you for, not for the drudgery it involves. If my employee can be more productive with AI so be it.
It doesn't even give a hint as to what it's an ad for. You could not air that on TV and expect anyone who didn't already know of/use Ubuntu to know what it's advertising. Something about a computer, and there's privacy? You think "certified" means anything to anyone outside of tech circles?
The really funny thing about the "lies about birthday present" one is that the wife asks the AI to make a Woodworking Memory Video, and while they're watching it, it looks like a beach vacation photo is included in the mix.
For a second I forgot where I was, and thought she'd be found out, then remembered it's an ad, and everyone is impressed.
Maybe the image is actually related to the woodworking? But I couldn't help but think, "that's about right - a random, ill-fitting photo"
>the wife asks the AI to make a Woodworking Memory Video, and while they're watching it, it looks like a beach vacation photo is included in the mix
What's funny is that google photos sorta makes these sort of random little videos all the time for you and asks if you want to see them. It also suffers from the issue of not really understanding the context from some of the pictures it pulls in. But this is a thing that's been around for a few years, like a lot of things, apple is late to the game but pretending they invented it.
I love google photos little albums and creations. I am the kind of person that almost nevers looks at pictures on their own, so when I get a google photos notifications I always get watch them and get to remember cool memories.
yeah I like them, it's just weird what they pull in sometimes. the ones with my kids often seem to always include the same pictures too, so I always end up seeing this one specific one of my son in basically every slideshow. I wonder if it meets some criteria for being colorful or something.
I’m not sure if the author noticed, but the intent of the commercials is to be humorous. If the image of a middle aged man writing an email like he’s in middle school didn’t tip the author off, I’m not sure what will.
It's like the Google Pixel ads showing how you can take a picture, and change all of the scenery with AI. Nothing is real, and you can't trust anything you see or hear. I would be pretty disappointed in my wife if she A) forgot my birthday, and B) spent 10 seconds putting together a photo collage using AI. I would expect her to feel the same. Personal and financial circumstances aside, it IS the thought that counts, and all of these ads seem to be saying it is fine to offload thinking to your trusty AI companion. It's not really humorous, it is dystopian.
Also, those ads showing different AIs acting like HAL but saying "the future doesn't have to be scary" are terrifying. In one the woman is locked in her house by her AI-bot, and uses a menacing tone, doesn't let her leave until she grabs her water bottle. In another, a man is in a self-driving car, which changes routes and takes him to a surprise birthday party. It is NOT a leap to go from these to hearing actual cases where "woman is trapped in her apartment and dies in a fire because the AI wouldn't unlock her door (or AI died first in the fire)", or "self-driving Tesla is hacked by the cartel/abusive ex and drives passenger to their death." I want NO part of the future they are selling.
I would rather my SO just tell me they forgot. Then we could have an honest conversation about why. That, I believe, is what you should do in a marriage.
In my marriage i have been slowly trying to move my birthday back one day at a time. After 3 years of effort ive successfully moved it back 1 day and my spouse still gets confused if its 1 or 2 days later, all due to my active efforts. I dont believe anyone should do this in a marriage, but they could!
I think society will take care of those dystopian feelings in time through non-tech means. Society will always adapt and people can clearly tell a gift or message that is made using AI. So if you want it to be thoughtful you will make it without AI. We are in the cusp of the next phase of growth and so we are seeing/feeling it, but in time it will become seamless
On the other side it's a good thing that there are ads teaching people that they can't trust anything they receive on their phone, because we can really receive fake images, videos, conversations.
Not sure if it's not meant to be humorous - at least it uses (and reverses) several well-known tropes:
- "we said no gifts" - right... so you're the only one who actually followed that? Well, bad luck!
- usually it's the husband forgetting the wife's birthday, not the other way around.
- ...and finally, I'd like to quote Jesus himself: "He who is without sin can cast the first stone" - this ad (and the others) show situations most of us have been in, so they're at least relatable.
I didn’t think they were humorous. If that was the intention, I question the moral baseline of those who wrote them and those that find them funny.
To me they looked bleak, depressing and evocative of a culture that views giving respect to other people as an annoyance that needs an app to make it go away.
Me neither. And it will be funny for some until it's not anymore. I don't like how those, for now, useful ai tools, will dissposses us from our creativity and ability to make things by ourself in the future. It will be fast and hit hard.
I don't think the problem is with the tone, but rather with the messaging. All AI-related marketing has been along the lines of "let the computer think for you" rather than "use the computer to think better", infantilizing rather than empowering the user.
From the bicycle of the mind to the tricycle of the mind.
Sadly that's what most users expect. They don't want to be bothered with learning and understanding, they just want a quick result now with as little effort as possible.
I think the author is trying to discuss how common lying has become. How it seems like nobody is expected to be honest anymore and everybody's just getting away with whatever they can get away with.
How narcissism is an American disease and it's spreading fast do to companies like Apple, Facebook and online dating learning how to profit off it.
I think you nailed it. And coming from Apple, the company that established its cred by touting creativity, individuality, and innovating, it's a wild shift.
Apple in 1997 [1]:
"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
I wonder how much of (people self diagnosing themselves with) autism is actually related to other circumstances like lack of media literacy, lack of familiarity with social circles/norms (or lack of cultural knowledge)
The Ubuntu ad is not bad certainly but it is meh, and where it lacks is where it goes on the tech mode.
Appple are speaking to the “Everyman”, Canonical are speaking to the tech literate.
Different audiences, Apple has power users, but its largest audience is an average person (my wife for example).
The average person doesn’t care about tech, they want it to work, work well enough and be dependable.
Linux is can be a minefield, and Windows is a mess IMO.
The average person doesn't care about an animation of a terminal or a chip with 3d composited "Performant" or "Secure" text. They care about "what can this thing do".
The Ubuntu ad could also have been for any version of Ubuntu since 14.04, or maybe even earlier. There's nothing that distinguishes 24.04 in there from what I can tell.
Lying can be seen as a sign of intelligence. Are you saying you hope “everyman” stays dumb?
I’m just being provocative to highlight this is a subtle issue. I agree with the general sentiment that Apple shouldn’t be encouraging ppl to lie. I found the actress kying to her colleague one quite tasteless.
That said, this all sums up how I feel about generative AI at the moment: a solution looking for a problem.
The Ubuntu animation tells me nothing a short bullet point list couldn't. If you're going to create a video, show me something. Don't just tell Ubuntu is secure and put little boxes around a few icons – show me that Ubuntu is secure.
I don't love the Apple ads, but they are at least showing me some evidence of the features they're saying exist in Apple Intelligence.
I think people still aren't accepting that Steve Jobs era marketing and product development left with the man. Apple is fundamentally different and is never going back.
Marketing yes, product development no. Jobs was a salesman, not an engineer or designer. He didn't contribute to the product of Apple despite his reputation for doing so.
Ridiculous. I worked at Apple and if you have the correct permissions, you can see old Radars that Steve himself wrote and also the comments on them. He was profoundly insightful and absolutely drove product development. An absolute myth that he was just a “salesman.”
Many people who comment on Apple have never actually worked there and they think some curated history book tells the real story.
Go have a conversation with Eddie Cue or Craig Federighi about Steve. Or even Jony Ive. Perhaps talk to some of the original Lisa and Mac teams.
That actually makes a lot of sense. If a companies tries to capture non technical users, telling users what kernel the system you’re trying to sell makes little sense
Yeh, they don't want to give credit to anyone else, only giving attention to "Ubuntu". Even at the end when it says some literal credits, it only cites Ubuntu "and other open source software" (which is almost undoubtedly Blender). Another example of Canonical's extractive approach to the Linux ecosystem (IMO).
The descriptions of the Apple Ads range from “less than charitable” to “that’s a bit of a stretch” but I’ll agree they don’t really do it for me. The “last minute video” and “sure I read your email” felt weird but the “remind me of this person’s name” was pretty cool IMHO.
That said the Ubuntu ad at the end eroded what trust I might have put in this blog author’s taste in ads. It was boring and didn’t make me feel anything. In fact if you swapped out the desktop screenshot with Mac or Windows it wouldn’t change any of the meaning. It was borderline AI-generate-able which is ironic given its context.
Ahh. "Gross", meaning, the author thinks they should do a better job selling their products from a practical standpoint.
At a push, if we wanted to try maintain a more essential meaning of "gross", I guess we could imagine that the author is saying that not doing an optimal job of selling your products is morally repugnant to them. Maybe that's true, I suppose.
An example of Apple actually being gross in their marketing is using the word "privacy" to mislead people into thinking they have privacy when they use Apple's devices. It's security they are attempting to offer to users, not privacy.
This intentional and somewhat subtle conflation of two terms in order to give people a false impression of Apple products is, in my opinion, properly gross.
FedEx should licence their model that’s meant to frustrate users into giving up trying to speak to a human.
Earlier it told me that it looked into my parcel tracking details and assured me that it was on schedule for delivery, so it wasn’t able to let me connect to an agent.
> I’ve watched that little [Canonical] animation several times, and they tell a better story in a minute twenty-five than all of Apple’s AI commercials combined.
I'm afraid I disagree here.
While I do find the Apple ads a tad obnoxious, they speak to the problems of normal people and how Apple Intelligence can directly solve these problems. How many people haven't forgotten a birthday, forgotten someone's name or felt stupid while writing an email?
The Canonical animation on the other hand, while cool, doesn't communicate to me that it understands my problems and is going to help me fix them.
Here's the full transcript of the Canonical ad: "Modern, Private, Performant, Secure, Supported, Certified, Everywhere, For Everyone, for You".
I’m not so sure about the Canonical ad, but the Apple ones are really bad.
I clicked on those thinking that the author may be overstating things but those ads are really really bad.
There’s basically 2 messages they’re promoting (the office worker one seems to be promoting a different message from the other 3).
The first ad:
- You’re a loser and Apple Intelligence will make you look like less of a loser in an email. But also people will look at you, see you as the loser you are, and then immediately be suspicious about that email you sent.
The other 3:
- Apple Intelligence will make you an even more efficient psychopath and make you great at manipulating loved ones and people who are interested in you.
WTF, Apple. The quality of Apple advertising has taken a huge hit over the past decade or so. But these ads go beyond just the anodyne nature of their previous advertising. This stuff is truly deranged.
In other words, Apple’s ads depict what people are actually going to use it for and already do (lie).
I guess this is truth in marketing.
Contrast that with the Canonical ad provided as an example in the article, which I found a waste of my time and closed it after 30 seconds, having learned nothing and not drawn to use the product.
What is this "Ubuntu" and how can I use it? As a consumer, what does it mean to me that it's "Certified"? Certified in what?
Apple's ads show you the product, how you can use it and how you and the people around you feel after using it (like you took a sneaky shortcut and happy, respectively).
I am terrible with names. If I use my phone to remind me the name of a person who I describe to my phone where and when I met a person, I wouldn’t classify that as a lie. This is a stretch. I remember the person. I remember the interaction. I remember where and when we met. I just can’t remember names, even of people who I work with but only bump into sporadically. I call bs.
"In one a schlub writes an email to his boss and uses AI to make it sound ‘more professional’, in another a young woman uses it to lie about remembering an acquaintance’s name. In another the same young woman again uses it to lie about reading an email from a college, to her face, while she’s sitting with her. In yet another, linked to recently by Scott McNulty, a woman uses AI to lie to her husband about getting him something for his birthday."
My dude. These ads were supposed to be funny. Can apple not joke? When did we all get so serious?
Vibing off the name of the post’s title, I think the fact that Apple sends all Siri and Dictation’s transcripts to Apple without the ability to disallow that behavior, even if all processing happens on device kind of sickening.
I installed 18.1 last night and after finishing waitlist I promptly asked Siri if she could answer questions like chatGPT now, didn’t understand. I said what questions can I ask you then? She said “Ask away!” I asked the difference between watts and volts, “I don’t understand”, she understood nothing, I’m so confused!
I was upgrading for these features so now I’m thinking of selling this 16 pro and buying a drum set because my 13 mini was easier to hold and apparently Siri isn’t getting any smarter according a the WSJ article yesterday.
i'm surprised he didn't bring up the ad with the parents playing with the new iphone in bed and make comments that their kids overhear and think something sexy is going on.
i hate that ad because:
a) they're not really even doing sexual innuendo, they're just saying things in a tone of voice that makes you think they're making racy comments
b) why are the kids sitting outside the bedroom door listening? do they want to hear their parents doin' it?
Holy Jobs, these Ads as if straight from the Black Mirror episode or that The Circle movie, unreal and sad, to the level of Idiocracy (2006) movie cringe.
Getting tired of being sold what may exist or will exist sometime in the future. How is this legal and now Apple is doing it? How is the fake it before you make it (make the actual product a reality for consumers to consume) strategy legal?
This video was posted a month ago even when Apple Intelligence wasnt available at all and in any form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPe8revsg3k . Even present day after it was launched Siri can not do this.
Start-ups and other tech companies are doing the whole fake it before you make it so Apple is too. Some recent examples...Open AI demoed and sold if you sign up you might get access to their version of H.E.R. yet Many months later its nowhere to be found yet surely that juiced their revenue. Does it really exist or it was a fake it before you make it demo? Similarly with Musk bringing out those robots implying they were AI driven yet later we learn they weren't. Isnt this all something called false advertising??
I agree that the ads miss their mark, and I think a better ad would have instead focused on how it could have _prevented_ the awkward situation to begin with, rather than awkwardly helping you cover it up after the fact.
I agree unlike other commenters here that the apple intelligence ads try too hard to be quirky and appease this weird flavour of incompetence being popular. Theres nothing inspiring or awe inducing about the ad that induces excitement about technology
While this post is about the authors own video being better and less cringe than Apple’s videos, the Apple videos might not be for me, and trying to say Apple’s AI is for everyone, including people who aren’t perfect.
The scenarios could have been different or better to me. But maybe I’m not the target audience, and iPhone is the beginner smartphone that almost anyone can use.
I agree those ads are pretty concerning and reinforcing bad human behaviours, but the Ubuntu one shown is boring and vague animations. Hardly a good comparison. Who cares about those?
I feel there's a lack of respect for the person being interacted with in these ads. They all end too soon to show the consequences of transparent AI use and imply the other character has never heard of AI.
More accurate endings would be:
- "I thought we told Warren to stop uploading company emails to chatgpt."
- "A photo collage?!, after I spent a week building you that new console table for your birthday."
Overly techie people can’t comprehend marketing and think it shouldn’t even exist. Most Linux users probably think advertising should consist of a bulleted list of features and bugs (set in a standard, easy to read font — none of that hipster shit) followed by the price, perhaps conveniently divided by the expected lifetime of the product.
I think this is mostly just a problem of not having good reasons to sell AI products to consumers in the first place.
I recently saw some Ray Ban Meta glasses ads.
One of them had a guy ask the glasses to describe what was in front of his face, and then he remarked “wow that’s accurate” (there are people skateboarding). The guy wasn’t blind. His use of the glasses made little sense.
Another ad has a young man asking his glasses how to dress for fall and then blindly following the suggestions like they’ve never dressed themselves before. It was embarrassing to watch.
A third ad has someone ask their glasses how to decorate for a disco theme party, and then they implement the very mediocre suggestions.
None of these things required AI, it’s just kind of “there”, and companies are like “idk maybe people will use our AI to like… dress themselves? or something?”
No way! There are definitely legitimate use-cases for all of the features demoed in these ads, but Apple's marketing took a darker path.
Email to boss: could've been someone who had a genuine struggle with language using it to finally get their boss to notice the effort they put into their work.
Remembering a name: could've used it to get the name and left it at them being impressed rather than making it a lie.
Summarizing email: could've used it when in a hurry at work whilst someone sent an extremely long email.
Video memories: could've used it for two people to share a nostalgic moment together without making it a lie.
The fact that lying is a core element of the ads is what makes them so gross to me.
The guys says he's surprised she remembers him. She could just look straight at the camera, say what can I say, I'm very intelligent, wink, and it wouldn't be gross.
Right, there's so many ways that they could have made these characters slightly less lazy & deceptive and it would've been fine.
It's not the first Apple ad to be in poor taste this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyOIFRJPII
The marketing goes for flashy scenarios
My writing ability might not be good enough to make them flashy here on HN, but I am sure that each of the scenarios could be made very flashy or moving with a bit of imagination & Apple's still-excellent production quality.
One of my favourite ads is a very simple story that is made gut-wrenching by creating an emotional connection and some great production value: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lv_Xl1e4U
Ernest Hemingway once said, “I’m sorry for the long letter, I didn’t have time for a shorter one.”
With Apple Intelligence, now you do.
That's a Blaise Pascal quote actually.
Why would I take the time to read a letter you couldn't be bothered to take the time to write?
Silly! You’re meant to have your AI read it and summarize it for you, of course!
Because they took the time to write a long letter, and were thoughtful enough to have it shortened to save you time when reading it?
Not unique to AI, honestly.
If I try to watch a technical review on a smartphone, they’ll still talk about camera megapixels, screen size/brightness, corners, etc. No one talks about scroll sensitivity and jankiness, [bad] position of buttons on screen and on the frame, sensor nuances, how it feels in a pocket, can it work as a display, notification sounds and sound level separation, etc.
All marketing, including third-party based, focuses on absolutely basic features for abstract people who do nothing and have no problems to solve apart from taking pics of themselves and other two-digit iq activities. I guess it’s only logical for this image to walk into a skate park and ask their glasses about what these guys are doing.
> mostly just a problem of not having good reasons
I disagree, I think this is bad ethics, and bad marketing people, working for Apple...what other explanation - same people crushed musical instruments and books, human craft-work -- using a hydraulic press, in a recent Apple advert.
Advertising certainly can show outrageous ways to behave, and it's "okay". Calling someone and simply shouting WAZZZAAAAAAP! into the cell phone, for the famous Budweiser advert during the superbowl...derives into a crew of 3-5 people shouting AAAAAAAAAAAZZZAAA into their phones, oddly. That was cute ....
However this is about enabling through lying. In one ADVERT it makes a Manager believe an Employee is more engaged than they truly are, rewriting their unprofessional language using the new "Professional" button, reasonably leading to a future misallocation of resources by the manager to the irresponsible seemingly under-skilled or simply lazy unethical employee.
What's worse is the people who are NOT using Apple products to lie. The Employees who did not lie about their grip on written language now have to compete with AI, wielded by their ill-behaved coworker. It stratifies society into Idiocracy.
This is a TERRIFYING series of advertisements chosen by Apple.
The signaling value of knowing how to writey words good is dead. More dead even than a coffin-nail, and assuredly that of a door (thanks, Dickens).
Signaling through speaking will become even more important. Get thy children to debate club, seminar-based classes (hope you're rich!), theater, and hell, I dunno, ToastMasters Junior or whatever.
You know they can use those AI generated words to create an outline of talking points right?
That too is also going to be dead if we follow that logic.
Talking points only go so far in conversation or argument. Hell, even in a presentation or speech.
It's not a good set of ads, granted.
But millions of people have been using Grammarly, et al. for this for years. Managers have actually paid to deploy tools like this to their employees. The ship you're talking about has already sailed.
yeah, that is super intersting for sure.
it is a crippling of language.
the art of language ironically injured by automation.
Nonsense. Are people who use spell checkers also lying when the computer helps them not sound like an illiterate 5th grader? What about Word’s pre-AI grammar correction?
Further, it’s pretty clear from the watching the commercial that the boss is not fooled by this. The humor of the commercial is supposed to derive from the absolute contrast between the well established and known behavior of the employee and the content of their email. Humor doesn’t always land for everyone to be sure but this sounds like the same sort of handwringing over tech replacing human effort we’ve seen for years. Calculators would let people bad at math sneak their way into jobs where you need math, IDEs will let people bad at coding sneak their way into places where you need to code. Now it’s “ai grammar editing” will allow people bad at writing professionally sneak into places where they need to edit professionally.
I think this is one of those things where the root cause is a social problem rather than a technical one, and trying to use technical solutions is somewhat helpful at best and masking huge issues at worst. If people can't write professionally, then the proper solution is better education, perhaps some education through onboarding in the job, and/or the boss being more flexible when reading. At least the common usage of spell checkers I see don't meaningfully change the tone of the text. The LLM-powered spell checker, akin to a different human writing the email for the employee, is unacceptable. It has perverse incentives and outcomes. Minor touch ups are one thing, but at some point it becomes deception.
I think there is only deception if you believe the original words written in the original tone was the intended message (or I suppose if the intent of the communication is to demonstrate your personal ability to write in a given style). If a coworker does something extremely stupid that harms our project and I sit down at my desk and write an angry email full of invective and spit and fury, save it in my drafts and go for a walk, then come back and rewrite the email to be constructive and professional, have I been deceptive? When I started the email I certainly intended to write the things I wrote in that first draft. But sending that would have been counter productive.
I might even still think my co-worker is a flaming moron who shouldn't be allowed out of the house unsupervised. But if I know that sending that in an email isn't going to solve anything and just make things worse, am I being deceptive if I remove that sentence from the email?
Or consider an alternative scenario. I attended a conference where a speaker made a reference to the Alamo. The speaker was older, and the reference would have been the same sort of "make a stand" reference any number of speakers would have made over and over in the 90's. But after their talk, I was talking with some younger attendees, folks born after the turn of the millennium. Among them, the speaker's metaphor was a hot topic. Specifically the "yikes" factor of referencing the Alamo in any way that in any way implied the defenders should have been looked up to. The speaker's intended message was lost in the specific details of their chosen metaphor because the words which they absolutely intended to speak did not hold the same meaning for the audience to which they were spoken. If some hypothetical AI speech editor existed where you could punch in the age range of your intended audience and it would edit out metaphors and references that would land wrong with the audience, is that being deceptive or is that good editing and "reading the room"?
> One of them had a guy ask the glasses to describe what was in front of his face, and then he remarked “wow that’s accurate” (there are people skateboarding). The guy wasn’t blind. His use of the glasses made little sense.
On the other hand, this is a pretty common scenario: user is surprised when AI gets something right :) Not sure it’s the best showcase of a product, though …
Yesterday I was walking in Greece and saw a sign I couldn't read so asked my Meta glasses and it gave me a translation and short explanation quickly, which was very helpful.
But generally, yes the uses aren't there. In the Apple AI video, the worst is that the 'more professional' text, actually reads much less professional.
If someone in a business situation sends you an AI generated email (and it's obviously AI it's so easy to tell) it makes it seem like they are unable to write English properly, giving the opposite impression than intended.
> Yesterday I was walking in Greece and saw a sign I couldn't read so asked my Meta glasses and it gave me a translation and short explanation quickly, which was very helpful.
Like other attempts at AI wearables like the Rabbit and Humane pins, I think that falls under "maybe useful but why wouldn't I just do the same thing with the phone that I'm carrying anyway".
- AR is very promising for both work and play, but is worthless shit if you have to hold a device to use it. Instantly 100x better if you've got hypothetical near-future non-terrible AR glasses on most of the day.
- Half of what people use the Web for is looking up trivia that would have been too high-cost to look up before, to bother with (most of the other half is posting on social media about it). Glasses further lower the cost of looking up many categories of trivia, making even more trivial pieces of knowledge cheap enough to look up. On a revealed-preference basis, this seems to be something people really like and find irritating when denied—nobody used to feel an itch when they couldn't find an answer to some fleeting trivial question that entered their mind. Once exposed to the Web, and even more so when smartphones were introduced and the Web became something you carried everywhere, they do, and it'll be the same for answering questions about stuff they're looking at, once used to glasses.
- The use case of capturing otherwise-missed (getting out the phone is too slow) fleeting once-ever moments is going to be very compelling for people.
Well as someone that only has a passable knowledge of Greek, my phone has been doing that since at least 5 years now.
Yes AI algorithms are behind it, but hardly something new to brag about in 2024.
Usability matters for use cases like this. A lot.
Yes, Google Translate has been able to do this for a while now, but I still find the experience very yanky and high friction so that I don't do it on a whim, usually.
Everything-translating AR glasses would have been something I'd have really appreciated on a trip to Japan, for example.
> In the Apple AI video, the worst is that the 'more professional' text, actually reads much less professional.
The original text is:
> Hey J,
> Been thinking, this project might need a bit of zhuhzing. But you're the big enchilada.
> Holler back
followed by the sender's first name in lower case surrounded by flexed bicep emoji.
The AI rewritten text keeps the "Hey J,". It changes the rest to
> Upon further consideration, I believe this project may require some refinement. However, you are the most capable individual to undertake this task.
> Please let me know your thoughts.
> Best regards,
followed by the sender's first name capitalized and with no emoji.
I don't see how the second could be considered less professional than the first.
From the other comments here it seems like some people may be seeing different ads when they follow the links, possibly depending on their location. The text above is what was in the ad I get to from the link in the article. Are you getting something different?
Sorry for moving the goal post... it is just that this example in the ad illustrates path to idiocracy.
Sounds like it’s time for an AI that writes emails like a busy tech executive:
“no big deal. get it done. steve”
Honestly I wouldn’t hesitate to steal and break any meta ray bands I see on the street in real life. I don’t want to see that creepy always recording without permission kind of shit normalised.
Do you steal and break people's phones?
Not trying to be snarky, I think I very much understand your reaction to this constantly monitored and surveilled world we're in. I think it's arguable that these types of glasses will make it worse too.
But people are recording without permission on their phones since several years now - what has been your reaction there?
I'm not a very confrontational person, so I tend to grumble and say nothing.
Holding a phone in front of you to record is obviously deliberate, unlike wearing glasses.
theft and violence is your solution? what a nice group of "intellectuals" here at HN.
This is what always happens when you have a technology and then desperately try to find problems to solve with it. Rather than starting with a problem and then applying the most appropriate technology to solve it. The exact same thing happened with Blockchain, but "AI" has about 100x more hype behind it.
I think people present day do not understand how to really use AI.. understand how it can benefit their life. The commercial the OP speaks and the ad agency sounds lame as they arent helping.
Personally Ive been enjoying wearing my Ray Bans for the past year and have used them to do things no other glasses can like...
- Translate.... was in Canada recently and a sign about Jasper the town i was in was in French. I asked Meta to translate it... it took a pic and audibly translated it for me.
- Was in Harpers Ferry WV on an overlook ..looking down into the town of Harpers Ferry which has a huge church which i have no idea it's name yet ask Meta what church is that over there. Took a pic and told me.
- Was in line at HersheyPark up on a platform and my friend wondered how many people you think are in line so i asked Meta and it took a pic and gave me an estimate.
As with the Apple ads, I remain unconvinced these are benefits. Translation, yes, but your last two examples feel oddly isolating and dehumanizing. Like, estimating the number of people in a line is a trivial task, and something fun to discuss and argue about with your friends! If your friend had the glasses to, do you think it would have come up in conversation at all or would they just ask theirs?
I dunno, I'm picturing a future with everyone standing around absorbed in their own devices (not too different from today) but where we struggle to ask each other normal questions due to offloading our collective intelligence and social skills to the cloud. Destined to become Daphne totally reliant on glasses to interact with the world around us.
I'm probably overly dramatic here. You're out having fun at a park with friends! I'm just trying to imagine how future generations will interact with this tech, particularly the youth who won't know a world without.
It enhanced my conversation as when both people do not know something you are looking at and or discussing you can now find the answer quickly via glasses on your face.
We all use Google to find knowledge/answers but most are not pulling out our phones during conversations cause that's rude. Yet it's not rude to get the answer from your glasses you are wearing on your face and still present in the conversation your having as well people will think wow that's cool (per my experience).
Yeah I don't think you're still present in the conversation while taking a photo and listening to or reading an explanation of what you're looking at. You might think it's less interruptive than pulling out a phone, but your attention is on the smart glasses. People think they can multi task too. I can see when someone just zones out during a conversation and they don't even realize it. I'm gonna be annoyed when I see you looking at the shit coming out of your glasses.
It interrupts some (depending on scenario) but isnt as rude and is way quicker then all the steps need to take to get out my phone and do a search.
Also at times friends will ask me to ask my glasses things during our hikes and what not.
I appreciate you might find value in these things, but each example I read just gets less and less compelling. Translation does seem mildly useful, the other things feels like information I can live with or without.
E.g. these aren't burning problems in my life. Even the translation, I'm happy to just be in the dark, or take a phone pic and translate if I really really need to.
Having everpresent AI tech on my face doesn't seem worth it if these are the kinds of problems I get solved.
Well if you use sunglasses and pull out your phone to take pics, videos and see the time ... using the glasses to do all those things (even without having your phone on you) makes a lot more sense (quicker and easier).
My problem with all three of these features (besides the terrible privacy impact that other commenters have already addressed) is: As the end user, how do you know and verify the results are actually correct? How do you know the road sign was translated correctly? How do you know that the name of the church was actually correct? How do you know that the estimate given was even close?
Your examples were all pretty low-stakes, so I guess "it doesn't matter if it's correct" is fine for them. But what if you actually ended up relying on an answer to be correct and it wasn't? Would you independently verify the correctness, or just blindly operate on bad info?
How do you know any information you get from a source that you can’t personally and independently verify is correct? How do we know a tourist guide book is correct? How do we know our language dictionary is correct? You don’t. People will need to learn to what degree they can actually trust a given source of information and decide how much the risk is worth taking. We do this all the time today, and every time new technology comes along there’s always an adjustment period as we sort out the boundaries of trust (see also people driving off roads and into ponds when GPS was new). The danger to me is not that it can be wrong, it’s that people don’t yet understand it can be wrong. That’s not helped by AI boosters trying to use AI in inappropriate ways and situations, but it’s also not helped by AI doomers that treat every failing of the new technology as proof it’s worthless and will never be useful. Both extremes are speed running a “boy who cried wolf” scenario for losing public trust in what they have to say.
We all seem to trust Google and the first search result link is the truth (i guess) yet now they are showing their AI results... are we trusting those the same as the first search result links we have always?
Personally i think those who are concerned about whether it's correct or not are not ones to jump all into new technology yet will when enough of their friends, family and co-workers have done so. There they find that level of trust they seek.
If we have trusted Google all the years then the AI that becomes the most trusted becomes the next Google. Open AI needs to create their own smart devices (phone and or glasses) and with that they could become the next Google. The information GPT provides me seems correct and matches Google's AI. Siri even with 18.1 is still terrible ... just asked it what day is November 9th it forwarded me to a Google search (lame).
Are those glasses with camera always on sticking it into other people's faces, just like before Google glass had it?
That's an idiotic toy to use among other people, and I am keeping things polite here. Unless you ask each of them if its OK they will be recorded and evaluated by Meta company (and who knows who else).
Your convenience stops right where rights of me and my family starts. Bring it next to any small kids and expect some well deserved non-nice feedback coming your way.
The privacy issue in time Im sure Meta and or Apple will figure out (i have some ideas to fix that) .. they need to cause that's half of peoples reaction to them while the other half dont care.
I could care less about other people I do not know I am using the glasses to capture my life (not theirs) and for
- Sunglasses
- To listen to music and take phone calls
- To take pics and videos of what Im experiencing in my life not others
- To enhance my conversations as pulling out my phone is rude to get the answer in a social conversation .. using my glasses no one has said anything rather thinking it's cool
> The privacy issue in time Im sure Meta and or Apple will figure out (i have some ideas to fix that) .. they need to cause that's half of peoples reaction to them while the other half dont care.
They don't need to figure it out, they just have to wait.
People holding their camera phones up everywhere and (maybe! You can't know for sure!) recording stuff used to be off-putting in about the same way, but we got over it within a few years. Ditto various other socially-shitty things, like talking on a phone in public or using nearly-invisible earbuds that make it hard for people to tell where your attention is or even notice that it might be somewhere else.
I kinda wish we hadn't gotten over those things, but we did, and having watched it happen a few times I'm sure we will again for this.
The problem with "AI" is that when it is well integrated, and useful, it is often invisible to the user. Many people, for example, benefit from automatic (and instant) transcriptions in live Zoom meetings. This is pretty much complete magic -- and yet, boring. You don't notice it. You focus on the result, which you need, rather than the fact that it's "AI."
This is my current belief as well. Ive designed many features with AI models and it wasn't until we recently branded those features with an AI personified name that users (and wall street) noticed.
Maybe this will convince you?
https://youtu.be/zvbTDUSz8Cc?si=IdlMNjydYgbZH_6n
Same link without tracking: https://youtu.be/zvbTDUSz8Cc
maybe this will finally get people to actually be able to say my name :,)
Sounds like a repeat of blockchain hype. Biggest threat here is replacing the cultural zeitgeist of "let me google that for you" with "let me GPT that for you".
Chat GPT what should i wear, if i were emperor? "Most emperors in my stories are going out naked."
The Ray-Ban Meta glasses seem like they're actually gaining moderately useful abilities. https://www.androidpolice.com/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-5-t...
Why not highlight those in the ad rather than the useless stuff?
I feel the ads I've seen are precisely what you say. I will say this though I have a kid on the spectrum and if I could teach her how to integrate her thoughts with the glasses it may help her in social settings. But for others who simply already know I, like you, don't see the value.
AI has so much potential, but sometimes the consumer products come across as a bit forced, like they’re still looking for their purpose. Overall, I didn't really like Meta's presentation this year. It felt kind of strange...
I work at a startup in the AI space.
We've been working with it for over a year now and I'm of the mind that AI, in it's current state, really isn't a tool meant for an end user to interact with.
It feels like it's the most useful when it's transparent and you -- as an end user -- don't know that there's an LLM in the process. The best use cases seem to be those that don't require an end consumer to directly interact with an AI, but their journey through some process is assisted by an AI instead.
The problem is that a lot of the marketing -- like these examples and Google's very misguided "Write me a letter" to an Olympian -- exists because companies keep trying to make "fetch" happen; the AI becomes the journey instead of being an assistant in that journey.
Amazon's Rufus is a prime example. It's tucked away as a button that one has to activate explicitly. But it would almost be better if it could just clean up the search results when I do a search and a bunch of junk is returned.
But it seems like Apple could make "fetch" happen in the past. Their ads were very aspirational, almost like you could become an Olympian if you just owned a Macintosh. These ads though, they're not about "you can do more". They're about "you can care less".
These ads feel like YouTube Short sketches. A little absurd, and a bit of a fantasy land. Would people really interact this way - word for word?
I think being aspirational with AI can feel a bit in-humane. A lot of people seeing this experience a bit of cringe when the topic of AI is brought up. Maybe they’re worried about their job, that technology is too pervasive - whatever it is, they’re uncomfortable. It’s an easier pill to swallow if I can laugh at it. Apple seems to be picking up on that in these ads.
Eh, I mean Apple has had its flops over the years like any company. Their ads were good, but all of their successful products were of high quality when evaluated objectively, in addition to having been marketed well.
In a way ads seem to have lost that edge?
There's basically two places where I see it as being useful -- as part of an automation pipeline where you need some translation layer from natural language to structured data or vice versa, and when the user knows it's an LLM and _wants to interact with an LLM_. I never want to see LLM generated content as an end user when I haven't specifically asked for it.
I agree with those.
The use case our startup is working is one more that I think really works well: why are you showing me these results?
Our product basically takes any search output and uses our internal knowledge graph for our clients to "explain" to the customer "why these results for this query/question?"
We use the same knowledge graph to then extend our client's native search results with much more relevant results using the LLM to better match results to the semantic intent of the question.
It's all quite nifty and transparent; the user wouldn't know that there's an AI involved without labeling it as AI generated.
I absolutely despise rufus. I used to be able to search questions and reviews instantaneously. Now I need to wait for rufus to poorly summarize everything, tap at least 2-3 times, and then get to see the search results. Talk about piss poor UX.
Reminds me of Austin Powers where he has a TV in his car in the 70s to talk with his boss then wakes up in modern times (the 90s) and has shitty, fractured streaming video. "Skating where the puck is going" is a great strategy for businesses - not so much for end users.
It's similar to how ~all phone calls sound worse than they used to before the phone system was digitized. For a while, you could only get audio quality and delay that bad by using a cell phone (actually, those went through a couple phases of differently-bad audio quality, as the tech "advanced")! Then they brought that joyful new experience to land line phones, so everyone could have it.
It's cheaper, though. I assume. The main effect of which is that it's finally cheap enough to be economical to phone-spam our grandparents and scam them out of their savings... hm, yeah, never mind, it's all down-side.
I think a good marketing move is showcasing the seamlessness of artificial intelligence. For some reason, AI is being stigmatized
Yeah, a really basic and relevant example might be if I have a meeting coming up on my calendar, an agent can pull info from my LinkedIn about the participants, check their socials (so I can make small talk and chat), research info about some of the topics in the meeting (e.g. pull stats, recent articles, etc.) and summarize it to prepare me for the meeting.
Like, that's actually useful but probably not super sexy.
This is a good example of where we should have stigma attached to AI: a partner showed me their CRM that summarized my profile for them. It was creepy in how far into my online life it had dug. It also said, along with the creepy things, that I was "risk adverse" and "only acted when I had complete information" ... as a startup CTO this is both laughably wrong and could have career implications.
LLM's can be tuned to do what you want it to do. It can be as simple as "summarize these notes" to as questionable as "rate this candidate for this job".
The former is mostly just a reduction in task and condensation of information. The latter is the opposite: an extrapolation of some conclusion based on given information.
This is not the fault of an LLM, but the people using it and the use cases that have been designed. An AI assistant that just gave me the facts (condense) rather than generate its own conclusions (expand, extrapolate) is fine, IMO.
I get what you are saying but, the same way ad targeting can be used to "serve me more interesting ads" and "surveillance" can be used to find missing children and sex trafficing victims, it isn't being used that way across the board.
This article is a prime example of why tech literate people aren’t inherently strong marketers for tech.
What does the Ubuntu ad say to the user? How does it capture someone’s attention? None of the ad tells me why this is something worth paying attention to versus other distros or OSs, it doesn’t even tell me it’s about the OS at all unless I already know what Ubuntu is.
Contrast with the Apple ads that tell you exactly what they want in the same time frame. Apple ads have always been tongue in cheek, and have always had a portion of people rubbed the wrong way because they took it too literally.
But at the end of the day, barring the few missteps like the crush ad, they seem to work for the target audience.
I find a lot of technical folk seem to struggle with “I don’t like it therefore it must be bad” and would have failed basically any media analysis class in college as a result. Similarly, the author falls into the “I like Ubuntu and this ad” and hasn’t stopped to think about how it plays to anyone but himself. It’s a really self centered outlook and one that means they’d never be able to market to others.
I remember iPods being advertised as, like, very cool. Remember all the ads with, like, the silhouettes dancing on colorful backgrounds? I can see thinking these ads were a bit over the top and silly, like a corporate ad exec’s idea of what is cool, but they definitely intended to be cool.
The people in these new ads are lame and clearly Apple intends to portray them as lame.
Apple have a range of ads to appeal to a range of people.
Even back then they had the Mac vs PC or a variety of other ads too that weren’t “cool” but were funny. Tongue in cheek ads have been in their DNA since forever.
Take for example the new Mac mini ad which is cute
https://youtu.be/JjpGvjy0Gxk?si=Gk1cU80FiJX2KYbC
Or just scrolling through their YouTube channel now to find a few over the years
Find your Friends https://youtu.be/yk6UVnMn9ts?si=UIqblUwbbONPFyRR
The Greatest https://youtu.be/8sX9IEHWRJ8?si=NhRVcMZyOlU7-PfC
HomePod ( probably my favorite of the bunch. Directed by Spike Jonze, starring FKA Twigs. Imho one of the best ads they’ve done) https://youtu.be/k70OczvX45k?si=4cKP63L4UwdP1vaW
AirPod pros https://youtu.be/DpcXUXtZ4CU?si=AqWofXEOu7ejTCA0
One could argue that they’ve not had anything as iconic as the silhouette commercial. I’d agree with that, but I disagree with the position that their ads today don’t show cool people or that ads back then didn’t show “lame” people.
Eh, but even in the Find Your Friends ad, where the guy is pretty nerdy and not conventionally cool (I mean he’s going to some cosplay festival), it is still portraying the main character as kind of… somebody you wouldn’t mind being, right?
Like he’s doing something nerdy, dressing up in cosplay, but he’s doing it well, he’s got friends, businessmen get out of his way as he strides down the sidewalk. Some of the people he interact with don’t get him, but he doesn’t care. He’s nerdy but he’s living his best life.
The Mac Mini ad is cute, and it portrays the Mac Mini as a sort of… little computer with over-the-top bravado. It is sort of self-effacing and tongue in cheek, like clearly the little computer is over-compensating for its small size with attitude. But it works somehow. Partly because it is the device, I think. I’m not imagining being the computer, I’m imagining being the user, so the over-eager awkwardness of the computer doesn’t reflect poorly on the “me” character. Partly I think because the computer is like… awkward but not unpleasant.
There’s a big difference between being nerdy/awkward but embracing it, and being nerdy/awkward and a loser.
Some of these new ads look more like the latter to me. The Bella Ramsey ones, IMO, they are not so bad, like she’s doing a “forgetful/absent minded but still successful” character and it kinda works. But one with the guy who can’t write a professional email and the lady who forgot a gift but wants to sneak into the nice moment, they didn’t work for me. You don’t want to be those characters, right?
Coolness is about being comfortable and confident being yourself these days. Not just outward shows of “coolness” That’s apples brand and has always been.
It’s the “you’re weird, you’re quirky, you’re different, you’re you” of being cool, not the jock/rockstar cool. The iPod commercials just happened to illicit both. But look at most Apple ads through the years and they have a consistent corporate theme.
That’s what is cool. Being confident to meet your friends at a convention in costume is cool.
Idk who said it, but it’s the “personal computer”. The person is key.
> What does the Ubuntu ad say to the user? How does it capture someone’s attention?
Exactly. Contrary to the article, it doesn't tell a story at all. It's just some slick-ish graphics with a few words overlayed on top. They're nice words. But they didn't really embrace "show, don't tell".
i have no idea what the ubuntu ad is trying to tell me, but OPs points on the Apple ads still seem pretty relevant.
The Ubuntu ad is mostly about emotions.
The main message is `sudo apt install btop`. But most people who use Linux already have this htop replacement installed.
> barring the few missteps like the crush ad Ideally I should be one of the people offended but the ad but I actually liked it and the concept. Of course ymmv
> it doesn’t even tell me it’s about the OS at all unless I already know what Ubuntu is.
Try watching the iPhone ads assuming you don't know what Apple does nor what an iPhone is. They make absolutely no sense.
Ads are targeted at a market, and these in particular assume some degree of familiarity. I guess the Ubuntu one in particular is to celebrate the 20 years, so it's a different vibe from a sheer call to action spot.
Which iPhone ad can you point me to that doesn’t have a story around a feature at the least?
Also since you bring up familiarity, does that Ubuntu ad tell you which version it’s about? What’s it telling even a seasoned Ubuntu veteran?
And lastly, there’s a much larger percent of the population that knows what an iPhone is but even if they didn’t, it’s in the name. The ads end with iPhone, by Apple and show the product.
Based on that ad, what is Ubuntu? A desktop? An OS? A computer company?
If you don't know what an iPhone is, what Siri is, this ad spot's is this girl asking on the phone for someone's name and faking remembering the guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPe8revsg3k
Is that a story or one single scene ? Was there someone on the phone ? Is the text bubble that person answering ? or is it just movie magic like so many over ads?
It only makes sense as an ad if you know the product, otherwise you wouldn't even understand it's the phone doing it all.
We're in agreement that the Ubuntu movie isn't selling it either. My point was that it's probably not aimed at that, you aren't suppose to rush to Ubuntu's site to download an ISO on the spot after watching it, it's probably more of a branding act than a push to action. Precisely to seed the Ubuntu name perhaps ?
The story is you ask your phone and it tells you. The rest of the details are irrelevant to it.
You don’t need to know how it happens.
And that’s fair about the Ubuntu ad. I think the issue is the Ubuntu ad isn’t trying to be anything much. But the author has positioned it on a podium against the Apple ads where it doesn’t belong. They’re not trying to do the same thing at all, and so framing them that way isn’t fair to Ubuntu
I've learned not to trust my taste in marketing for the same point you make in your first sentence.
While watching those ads i considered a kids perspective. It bugs bunny looney tunes stuff. Its silly, cartoonish, and sticky. Its a very good ad.
Side-point: imagine if this clearly cartoonish ad did encourage "cheating at life". whats the downside? Those people are still putting in as much effort as they would have regardless. only now maybe they have read an example of a good email or a summary which could encourage them to learn more later. or maybe its just fun having a world where lazy people are trying to skate by a la The Dude
Yeah, I think the Apple ads also reveal changes in the meta level of human communication. You cannot know for certain, that the other person is "being real", if that makes sense.
That Ubuntu commercial left me with a weird akwardness, not knowing what or who it was for. It said "For you", which was the best part and I think it means I am in control of things, but that message might be lost with everybody not familiar with IT/Linux/Open Source. I don't know what certificates it was talking about though.
> I’ve watched that little animation several times, and they tell a better story in a minute twenty-five than all of Apple’s AI commercials combined.
If I showed that video to someone who isn't steeped in decades of Linux, I suspect they'd ask me what an Ubuntu is. As compared to the "schlub writes an email" video, which was compelling, funny, and actually shows the product they're marketing.
> As compared to the "schlub writes an email" video, which was compelling, funny
OP is right, though. What you're calling "compelling" and "funny" seems very much also like messages telling you to that it's ok to lie to everyone around you including your family and friends. That's not a funny message to me. It's an appalling one.
Absolutely nobody is going to see these ads and to "Ah, well, now that I have seen this ad I will start lying".
That person is already lying about stuff. We've all done it.
I think the real indictment against Apple (and AI more broadly) is that this is the best use case for their supposedly revolutionary technology that they could come up with.
I don't want to interact with people who lie. I don't want to interact with people who say lying is a good thing. Apple is saying lying is a good thing ("genius") in some of these ads.
> Absolutely nobody is going to see these ads and to "Ah, well, now that I have seen this ad I will start lying".
I don’t think anyone is claiming these ads will get people to start lying. The claim is that lying to your loved ones is good and makes you smart is indeed the message these ads are sending.
People do lie. But they don’t usually feel good about it. These ads send the message that not only is that good, but Apple Intelligence will make you even better at lying.
It’s just a bad message.
Loneliness is the product that creates more markets to fill the void.
> What you're calling "compelling" and "funny" seems very much also like messages telling you to that it's ok to lie to everyone around you including your family and friends.
Eh, "lovable but lazy dumbass forgot something and has to lie their way out of it" is a pretty standard trope of boomer sitcom humour.
Just imagine these ads, but the person using AI was Homer Simpson.
A lot of sitcom tropes involve behaviors that are repulsive in real life.
Heh. That "little animation" is so generic, you could have substituted Ubuntu with Windows or MacOS and everything they showed would have been valid.
Right—what "story"? "The appearance of desktop computers has changed over the period of time that Ubuntu has existed"? What does this thing do for me? Especially, what does it do for me that other platforms don't, or that I might not expect it would do for me?
It was exactly like every other enterprise animated product video. Random words with some electronic music. I was actually expecting "synergy" to pop up.
At least they got one noteworthy "hit" on the jargon bingo card: "performant" -_-
The most annoying part when I worked in marketing was explaining to people that it’s not about the their opinion, it’s about profit. One person’s take is worthless.
Can I just point out the self gazing nature of this post?
Short form: I made an Advertisement in AI, I promote it by making shitting all over Apple (get more viewership using Apple) and then finish off to say I watched my own video in amazement 5 times.
What a beautiful self promotional world we live in.
I can't tell who you're saying is self promoting? Apple/the team that made the Apple ads or Ubuntu/the team that made the Ubuntu ad?
I think: Ubuntu/the team that made the Ubuntu ad.
It's funny the video is celebrating 20 years of Ubuntu yet the editing style and music choice feels like it should have been for the 10 year anniversary. Real early-2010s chic.
I think the write up seems to bring the indirect point that AI has limited use cases currently. So instead of taking the traditional Apple approach with showcasing the technical aspects of the product (an example being Apple has highlighted photography and video a lot in the last few generations of iPhone), instead Apple falls back on cheeky ads, which to be fair, are also not new to Apple marketing.
I do think that Apple's "white lies" series of ads are awkward, however. Apple has seemingly paused ads around privacy and security and are now targeting Apple Intelligence - they seem to be somewhat at opposite ends of the target market in a way.
It does feel as though Apple is conflicted here and I'm curious to see how it plays out for them. I'm, personally not a fan of the current generation or implementation of AI and do not want to use it. If AI could hook apps for more hands free operations at a deeper level I could see usability improvements for hands free environments which might be nice. Beyond that I really don't want it.
> I'm, personally not a fan of the current generation or implementation of AI and do not want to use it.
Why not? It gives vastly better than human performance across a wide range of problems. Just this morning I asked Chat GPT to find me the smallest set of positive integers whose median is 2 and whose average is 3.75, and it just spit out the correct answer instantly. That would have been an enormous pain in the ass to figure out how to do manually, but instead I got it done while in the middle of packing my kids' lunches for school.
In case anyone is curious how you would solve this manually, here it is. In what follows assume all lists are sorted from low to high.
For a list of just one or two integers the median and mean are the same so we can rule those out.
For a list of 3 integers the average is their sum divided by 3. But 3 times the average we want (3.75) is 11.25 which is not an integer. That eliminates lists of length 3.
On to lists of length 4. In a sorted list of length 4 the median is the average of the middle two numbers. The only pairs of 2 positive integers that average 2 are {2, 2} and {1, 3}. That gives us these templates for possible lists:
Remember, these are sorted and they are positive integers. In the first then the only possible value for a is 1. In the second a could be 1 or 2. Our templates are now For 4 positive integers to have a mean of 3.75 their sum must be 15. Setting b to make the sums 15 we get these as the possible solutions: A quick glance to make sure that the 4th number didn't end up smaller than the 3rd number, and we are done.> and it just spit out the correct answer instantly.
What did it spit out? Because there is more than one solution (or none, if unhelpfully pedantic).
It's certainly possible with practice to quickly mentally figure out that 3.75 * 4 is the least whole multiple, so n = 4. Quick and dirty 2,2 makes a possible median and so 1, 2, 2, 10 and 2,2,2,9 are clearly solutions, since x+y= 15-4 where 0<x≤2, y>2 is not hard to do mentally. I struggle to call this a hard or enormous mental calculation. (Not missing the other solution, just acknowledging it takes an extra step - apparently it is hard for ChatGPT!)
4o actually struggled with keeping a median straight: https://chatgpt.com/share/67225a67-48ec-800f-a581-9651e7f65d...
And o1-preview had a very difficult time coming up with all solutions. https://chatgpt.com/share/67225ead-c9bc-800f-bcc1-067aacbf2b...
I'm not terribly impressed by that last one especially for nearly 2 minutes of "thinking". I also don't love that it keeps saying, set, set... A helpful tutor should at least gently point out these are not strictly sets. There's no solution of a set of positive integers that solves that problem.
If your GPT didn't give those 3 solutions right off the bat (I could not get mine to) and clarify they are not formally sets, it is a type of failure. Sure you can argue that a better prompt would improve it, but this is a problem, non experts putting in ill-formed or flawed prompts and not getting useful feedback where an expert human would be more helpful. A good human will tell you it's a multiset and in general there isn't a unique solution so the problem could be phrased better.
I asked o1-preview to make the question more rigorous and it came up with "Find all sets...".
Because, ultimately, I'd like to continue to think and solve on my own. If I want to leverage a chat model, which I do, I can do that very easily on my own hardware. I don't want it so far shoved down my phones innards that I'm paying for hardware that is useless outside that use case.
Imagine the next 30 years when the majority of the population has no clue on how to function without cloud connected models answering questions on the daily. Very Black Mirror.
I also don't trust any of the frontier model vendors at this point so there's also that. Especially Sam Altman / OpenAI.
>Imagine the next 30 years when the majority of the population has no clue on how to function without cloud connected models answering questions on the daily.
The basis of this argument has probably existed for as long as humans have been able to self reflect.
If technology can very reliably do something I need to do better than I can do, why would I spend energy doing it myself.
> If technology can very reliably do something I need to do better than I can do, why would I spend energy doing it myself.
In reality, you're spending more energy. That being, yet, another problem with this use case [0].
Also, did it really "do it better"? Maybe it did it better than OP could, by their own admission. But they didn't learn anything in the process nor did they seem to consider the validity. Will it be right next time? How does one know? As indicated above - it doesn't appear to be a stretch that it could have just as easily given the wrong answer. [1]
"In an age of information, ignorance is a choice." — Donny Miller
[0] https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/projecting-the-electri... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41997498
Related quote:
"They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." - Plato
https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/
Related blog: https://pessimistsarchive.org/
The irony of Plato's writings on writing shouldn't be lost on you.
Agreed. The Ubuntu ad feels like it's written with Apple Intelligence. "Secure, Certified, Everywhere, For You"
I agree. If I showed that video to anyone I don't work with, they'd have no idea what they were watching.
I have no idea what they were selling. Are they selling a free operating system?
Is there somewhere I can watch the Apple ad(s)? I don't understand what or who this schlub is.
Ads are linked in the article, I believe the "schlub" is shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m0MoYKwVTM
Yeah. Somehow I get a different ad
They're linked in the article.
That video specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m0MoYKwVTM
My bad, it seems YouTube guides me towards other ads. Might be because I'm in eu or not using their app.
I managed to find the ad elsewhere
The post contains hyperlinks.
The article has links to all the mentioned videos.
Forget about lying, this is just amorally stupid and pandering.
I find the hypothetical universe where that guy is going to get anywhere good suggesting what his boss should “undertake” unbelievable. (Also not a good demo).
And we’ve been in this GPT world nearly 2 years. The boss is obviously supposed to be smart, he’s a black guy in a suit after all. Is this the first time he’s ever received something that was obviously from an AI. What’s he confused about?
> The boss is obviously supposed to be smart, he’s a black guy in a suit after all. Is this the first time he’s ever received something that was obviously from an AI. What’s he confused about?
Ironically, you're doing the same thing as the actor in the skit - pretending to be confused, for effect.
Obviously, the boss is used to receiving unprofessional responses from the employee in question. Obviously, the boss is thrown as a result. Obviously, this is a contrived situation for the purpose of humor that in real life wouldn't go like this.
The idea that a shlub like this would only just now for the first time be using an LLM like this is what is unbelievable. And as a joke it is simply stale. I get it, Apple has to at least pretend to themselves like they are groundbreaking in these things that are now years old. It's cringe because Apple thinks this is a novel premise for humor.
> The idea that a shlub like this would only just now for the first time be using an LLM like this is what is unbelievable.
It's unbelievable that someone would use a brand-new feature on their device for the first time?
Again: It's unbelievable that someone (like this) would be using an LLM to compose an email to their boss for the first time.
He's a lazy fuck office stiff (yet still manages to warrant an iMac desktop), you're telling me he's just now starting to use an LLM to compose emails? Sure, whatever. If you think this ad is clever and funny you are entitled to that, you're not going to convince me it isn't idiotic and the joke is old. Unless the message was Apple AI: the new thing for oblivious dipshits or the recently recovered comatose.
Their ad agency should know better too: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/google-pulls-ai-ad-for-olymp...
Even the bastion of pretentious journalism Fast Company has this headline: "In Apple’s new ads for AI tools, we’re all total idiots"
> Ironically, you're doing the same thing as the actor in the skit - pretending to be confused, for effect.
If you're intuitive enough to conclude that an otherwise inarticulate douchebag probably used an LLM to compose an email, why would you "pretend" to be confused? Makes no sense. There's nothing remarkable about using an LLM to write an email.
> Again: It's unbelievable that someone (like this) would be using an LLM to compose an email to their boss for the first time.
There's always a first time.
> He's a lazy fuck office stiff (yet still manages to warrant an iMac desktop), you're telling me he's just now starting to use an LLM to compose emails?
I know plenty of "lazy fuck" people not yet using LLMs. Having it built in to the device is likely to change that.
> Even the bastion of pretentious journalism Fast Company has this headline: "In Apple’s new ads for AI tools, we’re all total idiots"
That's fairly standard for ads. Cleaning supplies are sold on a "so easy dads can use it" sort of basis. Prepared food is sold on a "because you can't cook, obviously" basis. etc. I have managers at work who ask me to write client emails for them, even, because I'm a pretty good writer.
> If you're intuitive enough to conclude that an otherwise inarticulate douchebag probably used an LLM to compose an email, why would you "pretend" to be confused?
The actor is pretending. The character is shocked - for comic effect - that such a nice email came from someone who never sends professional ones. In the real world the response is obviously more likely to be "ah, they used ChatGPT this time", but if you expect realism in ads...
This really isn't as complicated to understand as you're making it.
> This really isn't as complicated to understand as you're making it.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vGAVcSjqMps
This is just running defense for the reality distortion field.
> I know plenty of "lazy fuck" people not yet using LLMs. Having it built in to the device is likely to change that.
Sorry I just don't live in this world. Everybody and their dog uses LLM. Especially the professional crowd affluent enough to afford Apple devices. The untapped market here is tiny.
I use an iPhone, a MacBook, I use a HomePod as part of a home automation system. I'm not an anti Apple fanboy. This shit is completely stupid and underwhelming.
> That's fairly standard for ads.
Now you're just being a condescending prat. I don't need a lesson in the obvious. I told you it's stupid for specific reasons that you simply care to not acknowledge, fine. Think whatever you want, you obviously love these ads. Great.
And since when was, other things are shitty too so this must be good even a worthwhile observation?
> Prepared food is sold on a "because you can't cook, obviously"
But, if you could actually cook that particular day, you wouldn't be using the prepared food. (Whether you can cook any day or not is another thing). As someone who cooks regularly, neither prepared food nor McDonalds are beneath me. On the otherhand, you obviously could easily be using an LLM for the last two years to write emails. So this is dumb. As a dad, I'm ok with "dads are stupid" tropes if there are other redeeming qualities. Your Apple ads have none.
I can relate with someone that can't cook. All I want to do with that Walter is punch him in the face. And, no, the knowing acknowledgement from token Asian doesn't improve things.
My prediction, like the Google ad, that ad is going to tank like the turd it is.
> Sorry I just don't live in this world. Everybody and their dog uses LLM.
We do indeed live in very different worlds.
Last month the moral panic in the 24 hour mainstream (pretty much every major media outlet in the US) news cycle was the environmental impact of LLM for writing emails, a bottle of water per email, think of the kittens, etc. Not to comment on the merits of this reporting, but among the middle and upper middle class US this is common, mainstream stuff. This is Apple's demographic, we're not talking $100 Android shit phones.
"The media talks about it a lot" is our standard to determine "widely used"?
We had a similar "moral panic" about Satanic child sacrifices in the 1980s. Satanic child sacrifices were not a widespread practice, though.
> Satanic child sacrifices were not a widespread practice, though.
You got me. This isn't debate club. If you want to think Apple's incumbent base isn't heavily using (or actively avoiding) LLMs either ChatGPT and Gemini or the 10k other B2B remixes, you can think that. And for the ones that aren't are they just holding out for Apple's flacid offering?
I don't know what to tell you. I work in midwest academic medicine, not tech, I'm not in the SV bubble. The people that don't use this stuff for either clinical (the only fucking rule I need in ad block seems to be freed.ai) or research work are still very aware of it, they're not waiting for Apple. It isn't a friction issue. People working in management consulting, it is used heavily because there is at least a desire to provide a professional sounding voice to customers. The thing is that in the real world J (the draft email should have said nigga, that would have been funny) knows Walter is still an idiot, yet Walter is still employed so what possible benefit is there to using an LLM. For internal stuff, you know you're not fooling any body, that is often the reason you don't use it. Not because you can't, but because it's pointless.
I don't think Apple is marketing a compelling product with that effort. The people that really want state of the art wordsmithing have had options, and what is Apple giving the naysayers? Is this better than ChatGPT, that example in the ad sure as hell isn't.
Maybe you're right that Apple is really reaching out with a compelling novel email writing product to their base, I'm just not convinced.
I don't use HomeKit as a core, but I use it because it integrates with iDevices. I am very much looking forward to Siri being less of a dumbass. Still think this marketing effort is lame.
I just get a sense from all this AI marketing hype is that AI is yet another grifter tool. The Ubuntu video was meh and I dont think it worked well to describe the story. A better video would be to show perhaps someone getting their kid an ubuntu laptop and how it shaped their mindset and future. Or Ubuntu on your grandma's computer and now we can enjoy coffee instead of fixing computers... etc etc.
> If I showed that video to someone who isn't
...the target audience, it wouldn't work. Same with the AI stuff.
Show that to someone with no understanding of Apple and it's products, or AI, and you'll have someone equally confused.
The understanding here is that in both cases the marketing is targeted at a certain group.
More interestingly, you admit that one story promotes interest in the product, while the other promotes the viewer being, as you put it, a schlub.
Maybe you can explain why you being a schlub is better than wanting to learn more about a product (or how quickly you try to pretend like that's not what you mean/said and move the goal post, lol)?
> Show that to someone with no understanding of Apple and it's products, or AI, and you'll have someone equally confused.
Apple is selling a magical button that unprofessional idiots can press to be perceived as professional. Who in the world is going to be confused by that?
I was already bothered by the Apple Watch marketing. The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too.
The messaging that AI is for lying is another big yikes. Apple marketing department has lost the magic.
As someone whose watch called 911 for me when I was in an accident, and who got a call when my mother fell, fear or not there are real, tangible benefits that probably can't be overstated.
I just wish they would cut down on false positives though. As a volunteer firefighter, I don't think I've responded to an "Apple Crash Detection" that was an actual car crash or fall or something...
After a while it feels like crying wolf...
I’m not saying the feature is bad. I’m saying the advertising shouldn’t be fear-inducing, it should be inspiring.
They could go the same way some insurances do it, with a very positive imagery through and through and only ever indirectly implying the "or else"
To be fair, since the Apple Watch introduced heart rate monitoring and other "medical" features, there have been numerous reported cases of it saving a persons life, from detecting heart conditions to detecting falls.
Yeah that is true, but also not sufficient data to indicate that the Apple Watch actually net saves lives.
On the other side of the coin of more widespread and continuous monitoring is always the concerns of increasing false positives
The tradeoff is always between false positives and false negatives of which the former in this scenario is preferred.
What do you mean by "net"? Are you suggesting that the Apple Watch actually causes people's deaths, too—in numbers large enough to counterbalance the lives it's saved?
Apple's ecosystem is all about replacing other products, devices, and services with features of Apple devices. See: all those photos of "here's all the devices an iPhone replaces" from like 15 years ago.
I'm not sure how else they advertise that now your Apple devices replace OnStar and Life Alert, than advertising kinda the same way that those did (but less lame, hopefully).
>The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too.
Is there a specific advertisement you're referring to here, or just all apple watch advertisements? I haven't really seen any ads for the apple watch, and I am curious if this is an exaggeration.
I'm assuming by "literally" you meant "metaphorically", but I'd like to look up which ad you are referencing to get an idea of what you mean.
Edit: I've watched the ads. They are not in great taste, in my opinion, however they also did not tell me I would literally die if I don't buy an Apple Watch.
This is the kind of ad people take issue with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwkZWowI8o / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k4VVgmuNvU / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD0rUo1wZds
Or a similar crash detection feature in iPhone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWBFF9R3VmU / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsAL36M8bwE
I think they are referring to the "Apple Watch Series 7 911 ad".
I think they are correct in their use of "literally".
I believe this is the ad being described by GP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwkZWowI8o
I remember people expressing similar frustrations with the crash detection features on iPhones, and I still don't understand the issue. These new safety features are helpful and have helped save lives. Scaling back the ad copy to "maybe you'd want to use this, just in case, though it's not a guarantee of anything, so whatever," as it seems the complaints are indicating, is not how any other life-saving features on any device have ever been sold. Those old LifeAlert "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials didn't pull their punch and say "Eh, maybe you'll want this for your grandparent."
I dunno, those life alert ads gave me the impression that they might not care
https://youtu.be/8C4Sb9TpfM4?si=39Os2aBHL1mpSygy
Contrast with old OnStar commercials would be more fruitful.
The blog entry suffers from congratulating the mediocre Ubuntu ad, but it's right about the vile Apple ads.
The Apple ads are dystopian and revulsive. She really pulls out her phone while talking to a person and then lies to her face. A wife and mother forgets dad's birthday and smugly "gifts" him 50 auto-playing photos, as shown on her phone screen?
Ubuntu nothwistanding, I found the Apple ads quite offensive.
Ads tell you what the company thinks about it's target audience and clearly Apple thinks we're all just a bunch of bumbling fools that can't do anything without our phones.
Compared to this Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, which frames everything as something that can help you out and is fun and quirky: https://youtu.be/GZ-xGBTvtO4
I've been using Mac as my workhorse my entire career, switched from Android to iPhone recently. These ads are actually making me reconsider what my next hardware upgrades are going to be.
> Apple thinks we're all just a bunch of bumbling fool
He's out of line, but he's right.
I'm fully aware that Apple has always targeted people who are less tech literate, but this is just another level.
The consumer use cases of "AI" right now are mostly about cheating at work that one is still really supposed to do themselves.
Maybe the ad people tried to come up with relatively palatable ones?
Note that no one is cheating on their school homework, which is a huge consumer use case category. And no creative work was detectably plagiarized (art, code). Though they still did do employment slacking/incompetence gaining advantage, by increasing deceptive and time-wasting noise for everyone else.
Or maybe that's the actual use cases of their target audience?
If you get work done while using AI you clearly aren’t cheating, that’s what they pay you for, not for the drudgery it involves. If my employee can be more productive with AI so be it.
If you think the Ubuntu ad is telling a story, I'd ask you what the story is.
It's just a very standard ad. A lot better than these horrible ads from Apple, though.
It doesn't even give a hint as to what it's an ad for. You could not air that on TV and expect anyone who didn't already know of/use Ubuntu to know what it's advertising. Something about a computer, and there's privacy? You think "certified" means anything to anyone outside of tech circles?
What is it selling? And where do you buy it? It’s a terrible ad.
The really funny thing about the "lies about birthday present" one is that the wife asks the AI to make a Woodworking Memory Video, and while they're watching it, it looks like a beach vacation photo is included in the mix.
For a second I forgot where I was, and thought she'd be found out, then remembered it's an ad, and everyone is impressed.
Maybe the image is actually related to the woodworking? But I couldn't help but think, "that's about right - a random, ill-fitting photo"
>the wife asks the AI to make a Woodworking Memory Video, and while they're watching it, it looks like a beach vacation photo is included in the mix
What's funny is that google photos sorta makes these sort of random little videos all the time for you and asks if you want to see them. It also suffers from the issue of not really understanding the context from some of the pictures it pulls in. But this is a thing that's been around for a few years, like a lot of things, apple is late to the game but pretending they invented it.
I love google photos little albums and creations. I am the kind of person that almost nevers looks at pictures on their own, so when I get a google photos notifications I always get watch them and get to remember cool memories.
yeah I like them, it's just weird what they pull in sometimes. the ones with my kids often seem to always include the same pictures too, so I always end up seeing this one specific one of my son in basically every slideshow. I wonder if it meets some criteria for being colorful or something.
I’m not sure if the author noticed, but the intent of the commercials is to be humorous. If the image of a middle aged man writing an email like he’s in middle school didn’t tip the author off, I’m not sure what will.
It's like the Google Pixel ads showing how you can take a picture, and change all of the scenery with AI. Nothing is real, and you can't trust anything you see or hear. I would be pretty disappointed in my wife if she A) forgot my birthday, and B) spent 10 seconds putting together a photo collage using AI. I would expect her to feel the same. Personal and financial circumstances aside, it IS the thought that counts, and all of these ads seem to be saying it is fine to offload thinking to your trusty AI companion. It's not really humorous, it is dystopian.
Also, those ads showing different AIs acting like HAL but saying "the future doesn't have to be scary" are terrifying. In one the woman is locked in her house by her AI-bot, and uses a menacing tone, doesn't let her leave until she grabs her water bottle. In another, a man is in a self-driving car, which changes routes and takes him to a surprise birthday party. It is NOT a leap to go from these to hearing actual cases where "woman is trapped in her apartment and dies in a fire because the AI wouldn't unlock her door (or AI died first in the fire)", or "self-driving Tesla is hacked by the cartel/abusive ex and drives passenger to their death." I want NO part of the future they are selling.
I would rather my SO just tell me they forgot. Then we could have an honest conversation about why. That, I believe, is what you should do in a marriage.
In my marriage i have been slowly trying to move my birthday back one day at a time. After 3 years of effort ive successfully moved it back 1 day and my spouse still gets confused if its 1 or 2 days later, all due to my active efforts. I dont believe anyone should do this in a marriage, but they could!
>Then we could have an honest conversation about why.
It doesn't even need to be a conversation. Humans forget things.
"Oh damn, I forgot! Let's grab dinner tonight!" or w/e, that's all people need.
I don't disagree, but sometimes there could be something else going on.
I think society will take care of those dystopian feelings in time through non-tech means. Society will always adapt and people can clearly tell a gift or message that is made using AI. So if you want it to be thoughtful you will make it without AI. We are in the cusp of the next phase of growth and so we are seeing/feeling it, but in time it will become seamless
On the other side it's a good thing that there are ads teaching people that they can't trust anything they receive on their phone, because we can really receive fake images, videos, conversations.
>I want NO part of the future they are selling.
Most AI in a nutshell right now.
(On the ad)
The face she makes when walking away from her family ... imagine being married to that.
> I’m not sure if the author noticed, but the intent of the commercials is to be humorous.
The birthday one was in no way meant to be humorous.
It absolutely was.
May have missed the mark for many, but the scenario depicted is certainly intended to be funny. "Oh shit, we said no presents but the kids did some!"
Not sure if it's not meant to be humorous - at least it uses (and reverses) several well-known tropes:
- "we said no gifts" - right... so you're the only one who actually followed that? Well, bad luck!
- usually it's the husband forgetting the wife's birthday, not the other way around.
- ...and finally, I'd like to quote Jesus himself: "He who is without sin can cast the first stone" - this ad (and the others) show situations most of us have been in, so they're at least relatable.
Is that because "AI" use cases are a joke ?
I didn’t think they were humorous. If that was the intention, I question the moral baseline of those who wrote them and those that find them funny.
To me they looked bleak, depressing and evocative of a culture that views giving respect to other people as an annoyance that needs an app to make it go away.
Me neither. And it will be funny for some until it's not anymore. I don't like how those, for now, useful ai tools, will dissposses us from our creativity and ability to make things by ourself in the future. It will be fast and hit hard.
I don't think the problem is with the tone, but rather with the messaging. All AI-related marketing has been along the lines of "let the computer think for you" rather than "use the computer to think better", infantilizing rather than empowering the user.
From the bicycle of the mind to the tricycle of the mind.
Sadly that's what most users expect. They don't want to be bothered with learning and understanding, they just want a quick result now with as little effort as possible.
s/tricycle/wheelchair/
More like one of those hover chairs from Wall-E
I think the author is trying to discuss how common lying has become. How it seems like nobody is expected to be honest anymore and everybody's just getting away with whatever they can get away with.
How narcissism is an American disease and it's spreading fast do to companies like Apple, Facebook and online dating learning how to profit off it.
Right! It's one thing to accept marketing teams lying about their products, but now they are promoting lying!
I think you nailed it. And coming from Apple, the company that established its cred by touting creativity, individuality, and innovating, it's a wild shift.
Apple in 1997 [1]: "Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
Apple today: "Very Victorian, which I loved."
[1] https://thebrandhopper.com/2023/08/20/apple-top-commercials-...
How is narcissism an American disease?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-11/study-the...
I think the only way to not be aware of this trend is to be american
Thank you for this article, many of us American's see it too!
any universally appearing personality trait can be attributed to a whole nation with one easy trick: racism!
Correct
I wonder how much of (people self diagnosing themselves with) autism is actually related to other circumstances like lack of media literacy, lack of familiarity with social circles/norms (or lack of cultural knowledge)
The Ubuntu ad is not bad certainly but it is meh, and where it lacks is where it goes on the tech mode.
He had my attention until he posted that mind-numbingly generic Ubuntu ad. Most people would tune that out in seconds.
I’m kind of glad Apple is putting a touch more flavor in their ads.
Appple are speaking to the “Everyman”, Canonical are speaking to the tech literate.
Different audiences, Apple has power users, but its largest audience is an average person (my wife for example). The average person doesn’t care about tech, they want it to work, work well enough and be dependable.
Linux is can be a minefield, and Windows is a mess IMO.
Apple also shows while Canonical tells.
The average person doesn't care about an animation of a terminal or a chip with 3d composited "Performant" or "Secure" text. They care about "what can this thing do".
The Ubuntu ad could also have been for any version of Ubuntu since 14.04, or maybe even earlier. There's nothing that distinguishes 24.04 in there from what I can tell.
Clearly you missed the change to the background image then.
Apple's ads tell you what they think their target audience is, clearly they think it's "bumbling fool that can't do anything right".
You’re simplifying it a bit, but versions of that framing and mindset have brought user interfaces and interactions into existence.
I'd really like to hold onto the belief that "make lying easier" doesn't speak to the everyman for just a little bit longer please.
Lying can be seen as a sign of intelligence. Are you saying you hope “everyman” stays dumb?
I’m just being provocative to highlight this is a subtle issue. I agree with the general sentiment that Apple shouldn’t be encouraging ppl to lie. I found the actress kying to her colleague one quite tasteless.
That said, this all sums up how I feel about generative AI at the moment: a solution looking for a problem.
> lie about remembering an acquaintance’s name.
That's a heck of a reach. Is it also a lie if I ask my partner what someone's name is when I forget?
The email writing one is pretty innocuous as well. Grammarly has been running basically the same ad for the last 5 years.
I agree the others are not so great.
Asking about someone's name is isn't the lie. Bragging to them about how you remembered their name is. And the latter is the scenario in this ad:
> 0:16 Bella: Zac!
> 0:17 Zac: Oh wow, I didn't think you'd remember me.
> 0:19 Bella: Yeah of course, as soon a I saw you I'm like, it's Zac, nobody walks like Zac.
The Ubuntu animation tells me nothing a short bullet point list couldn't. If you're going to create a video, show me something. Don't just tell Ubuntu is secure and put little boxes around a few icons – show me that Ubuntu is secure.
I don't love the Apple ads, but they are at least showing me some evidence of the features they're saying exist in Apple Intelligence.
The comparison is a great example of the "show don't tell" cliche that English teachers love.
I think people still aren't accepting that Steve Jobs era marketing and product development left with the man. Apple is fundamentally different and is never going back.
Marketing yes, product development no. Jobs was a salesman, not an engineer or designer. He didn't contribute to the product of Apple despite his reputation for doing so.
Steve Jobs didn’t contribute to the product of Apple? Are you sure?
Ridiculous. I worked at Apple and if you have the correct permissions, you can see old Radars that Steve himself wrote and also the comments on them. He was profoundly insightful and absolutely drove product development. An absolute myth that he was just a “salesman.”
Many people who comment on Apple have never actually worked there and they think some curated history book tells the real story.
Go have a conversation with Eddie Cue or Craig Federighi about Steve. Or even Jony Ive. Perhaps talk to some of the original Lisa and Mac teams.
It's the first time I've seen an advertisement for Ubuntu. Are they getting ready to get new users dissatisfied by Apple's AI?
Well, it is the year of Linux on the desktop.
Now that everyone is using laptops, it’s the year of the Linux desktop. The old clunkers under our desks are all Linux.
Remarkable then, how that entire advertisement managed to not mention Linux once in its entire 85 seconds of runtime.
That actually makes a lot of sense. If a companies tries to capture non technical users, telling users what kernel the system you’re trying to sell makes little sense
Yeh, they don't want to give credit to anyone else, only giving attention to "Ubuntu". Even at the end when it says some literal credits, it only cites Ubuntu "and other open source software" (which is almost undoubtedly Blender). Another example of Canonical's extractive approach to the Linux ecosystem (IMO).
The descriptions of the Apple Ads range from “less than charitable” to “that’s a bit of a stretch” but I’ll agree they don’t really do it for me. The “last minute video” and “sure I read your email” felt weird but the “remind me of this person’s name” was pretty cool IMHO.
That said the Ubuntu ad at the end eroded what trust I might have put in this blog author’s taste in ads. It was boring and didn’t make me feel anything. In fact if you swapped out the desktop screenshot with Mac or Windows it wouldn’t change any of the meaning. It was borderline AI-generate-able which is ironic given its context.
Ahh. "Gross", meaning, the author thinks they should do a better job selling their products from a practical standpoint.
At a push, if we wanted to try maintain a more essential meaning of "gross", I guess we could imagine that the author is saying that not doing an optimal job of selling your products is morally repugnant to them. Maybe that's true, I suppose.
An example of Apple actually being gross in their marketing is using the word "privacy" to mislead people into thinking they have privacy when they use Apple's devices. It's security they are attempting to offer to users, not privacy.
This intentional and somewhat subtle conflation of two terms in order to give people a false impression of Apple products is, in my opinion, properly gross.
FedEx should licence their model that’s meant to frustrate users into giving up trying to speak to a human.
Earlier it told me that it looked into my parcel tracking details and assured me that it was on schedule for delivery, so it wasn’t able to let me connect to an agent.
Except I hadn’t yet given it any tracking number.
> I’ve watched that little [Canonical] animation several times, and they tell a better story in a minute twenty-five than all of Apple’s AI commercials combined.
I'm afraid I disagree here.
While I do find the Apple ads a tad obnoxious, they speak to the problems of normal people and how Apple Intelligence can directly solve these problems. How many people haven't forgotten a birthday, forgotten someone's name or felt stupid while writing an email?
The Canonical animation on the other hand, while cool, doesn't communicate to me that it understands my problems and is going to help me fix them.
Here's the full transcript of the Canonical ad: "Modern, Private, Performant, Secure, Supported, Certified, Everywhere, For Everyone, for You".
This is comparing apples to oranges.
I’m not so sure about the Canonical ad, but the Apple ones are really bad.
I clicked on those thinking that the author may be overstating things but those ads are really really bad.
There’s basically 2 messages they’re promoting (the office worker one seems to be promoting a different message from the other 3).
The first ad: - You’re a loser and Apple Intelligence will make you look like less of a loser in an email. But also people will look at you, see you as the loser you are, and then immediately be suspicious about that email you sent.
The other 3: - Apple Intelligence will make you an even more efficient psychopath and make you great at manipulating loved ones and people who are interested in you.
WTF, Apple. The quality of Apple advertising has taken a huge hit over the past decade or so. But these ads go beyond just the anodyne nature of their previous advertising. This stuff is truly deranged.
In other words, Apple’s ads depict what people are actually going to use it for and already do (lie).
I guess this is truth in marketing.
Contrast that with the Canonical ad provided as an example in the article, which I found a waste of my time and closed it after 30 seconds, having learned nothing and not drawn to use the product.
What is this "Ubuntu" and how can I use it? As a consumer, what does it mean to me that it's "Certified"? Certified in what?
Apple's ads show you the product, how you can use it and how you and the people around you feel after using it (like you took a sneaky shortcut and happy, respectively).
I am terrible with names. If I use my phone to remind me the name of a person who I describe to my phone where and when I met a person, I wouldn’t classify that as a lie. This is a stretch. I remember the person. I remember the interaction. I remember where and when we met. I just can’t remember names, even of people who I work with but only bump into sporadically. I call bs.
Edit: the ad in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPe8revsg3k
Throughout Apple’s history, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of their ad campaigns be as brazen and disingenuous as this Apple Intelligence one.
I dunno if the birthday video ad is really, like, gross. I guess the main character is sort of dishonest, but it isn’t a huge thing really.
It is pretty depressing though. The main character is just kind of tired and sad.
"In one a schlub writes an email to his boss and uses AI to make it sound ‘more professional’, in another a young woman uses it to lie about remembering an acquaintance’s name. In another the same young woman again uses it to lie about reading an email from a college, to her face, while she’s sitting with her. In yet another, linked to recently by Scott McNulty, a woman uses AI to lie to her husband about getting him something for his birthday."
My dude. These ads were supposed to be funny. Can apple not joke? When did we all get so serious?
If it cannot write code, I am not very interested.
Vibing off the name of the post’s title, I think the fact that Apple sends all Siri and Dictation’s transcripts to Apple without the ability to disallow that behavior, even if all processing happens on device kind of sickening.
I installed 18.1 last night and after finishing waitlist I promptly asked Siri if she could answer questions like chatGPT now, didn’t understand. I said what questions can I ask you then? She said “Ask away!” I asked the difference between watts and volts, “I don’t understand”, she understood nothing, I’m so confused!
I was upgrading for these features so now I’m thinking of selling this 16 pro and buying a drum set because my 13 mini was easier to hold and apparently Siri isn’t getting any smarter according a the WSJ article yesterday.
> In another the same young woman again uses it to lie about reading an email from a college, to her face
If only he'd let Apple Intelligence proof-read his blog post.
i'm surprised he didn't bring up the ad with the parents playing with the new iphone in bed and make comments that their kids overhear and think something sexy is going on.
i hate that ad because:
a) they're not really even doing sexual innuendo, they're just saying things in a tone of voice that makes you think they're making racy comments
b) why are the kids sitting outside the bedroom door listening? do they want to hear their parents doin' it?
Holy Jobs, these Ads as if straight from the Black Mirror episode or that The Circle movie, unreal and sad, to the level of Idiocracy (2006) movie cringe.
I don't think this is gross, I think it's hilarious. My phone is supposed to be a heat sink for other people's B.S.
Getting tired of being sold what may exist or will exist sometime in the future. How is this legal and now Apple is doing it? How is the fake it before you make it (make the actual product a reality for consumers to consume) strategy legal?
This video was posted a month ago even when Apple Intelligence wasnt available at all and in any form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPe8revsg3k . Even present day after it was launched Siri can not do this.
Start-ups and other tech companies are doing the whole fake it before you make it so Apple is too. Some recent examples...Open AI demoed and sold if you sign up you might get access to their version of H.E.R. yet Many months later its nowhere to be found yet surely that juiced their revenue. Does it really exist or it was a fake it before you make it demo? Similarly with Musk bringing out those robots implying they were AI driven yet later we learn they weren't. Isnt this all something called false advertising??
I agree that the ads miss their mark, and I think a better ad would have instead focused on how it could have _prevented_ the awkward situation to begin with, rather than awkwardly helping you cover it up after the fact.
I agree unlike other commenters here that the apple intelligence ads try too hard to be quirky and appease this weird flavour of incompetence being popular. Theres nothing inspiring or awe inducing about the ad that induces excitement about technology
AI is mostly about selling something no one needs to people who don't need it. I think they nailed it there.
The Ubuntu ad looks cheap.
While this post is about the authors own video being better and less cringe than Apple’s videos, the Apple videos might not be for me, and trying to say Apple’s AI is for everyone, including people who aren’t perfect.
The scenarios could have been different or better to me. But maybe I’m not the target audience, and iPhone is the beginner smartphone that almost anyone can use.
I agree those ads are pretty concerning and reinforcing bad human behaviours, but the Ubuntu one shown is boring and vague animations. Hardly a good comparison. Who cares about those?
I like Ubuntu but agree that this post would've been better off without the comparison. Let's just ignore it.
The Apple Intelligence ads really are sending a terrible message. Humanity needs more honesty, not a higher pile of lies.
I don't think it will be possible to ignore it, the bad comparison makes the author seem confused and unreliable
I feel there's a lack of respect for the person being interacted with in these ads. They all end too soon to show the consequences of transparent AI use and imply the other character has never heard of AI.
More accurate endings would be:
- "I thought we told Warren to stop uploading company emails to chatgpt."
- "A photo collage?!, after I spent a week building you that new console table for your birthday."
Overly techie people can’t comprehend marketing and think it shouldn’t even exist. Most Linux users probably think advertising should consist of a bulleted list of features and bugs (set in a standard, easy to read font — none of that hipster shit) followed by the price, perhaps conveniently divided by the expected lifetime of the product.
when the largest company in the world is telling you that lying is the main sell of AI....i guess lying is the new honesty in 2024? smfh lmfao
The problem with the ad that no one is touching on is that it makes the consumer look like an idiot or a lazy, disingenuous person.
"You need AI because you are lazy and stupid and do not care about honesty and accountability."
Sorry, but I don’t see them as the author. I love these ads.
They are lovely indeed.
Apple seems to be big enough to make fun of the AI fiasco.