Why Do I Find Apple’s Ads Unsettling?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ธ.ค. 2024
- The Apple Intelligence advertising campaign makes me uneasy. In this video, I review a few of their recent ads and question whether deception, perception management, and the use of technology to intentionally mislead others are really the kind of future we want to build. The campaign seems to jump on a bandwagon trend in generative AI marketing, selling it as a way to implicitly and explicitly mislead others, which in the context of a post-truth world where we are seeking anchors of stability we can trust and believe in, might be a reason many people are often resistant to this technology.
I thought Apple were supposed to be more imaginative, playful, and creative than this.
00:30 Crush!
02:30 Apple Intelligence Campaign (with Bella Ramsey)
04:12 Custom Memory Movies (Dead Fish)
05:58 Memory Movies (Dad's birthday)
11:02 Write Smarter
14:48 Email Summary
19:10 More Personal Siri
Links to Full Adverts
Crush! • Crush! | iPad Pro | Apple
Custom Memory Movies (Bella Ramsey) • Apple Intelligence | C...
Memory Movies • Apple Intelligence | C...
Write Smarter • Apple Intelligence | W...
Email Summary
More Personal Siri • Apple Intelligence | M...
Article I Read Out: www.designrush...
![ILLSLICK X YOUNGOHM - We're The same [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yUJNkobYR0E/mqdefault.jpg)
the one with the mom being jealous of her daughter's gifts actually made my skin crawl. It was a more tense and uncomfortable moment than any black mirror episode has been able to create.
I'm glad someone else noticed that jealousy. I was wondering if I was reading too much into it! Very weird and uncomfortable.
Any reason you’re showing the ads in a tiny tiny television in the middle such as we cannot see them on our phones? My eyes would like to know :-) but excellent analysis nevertheless
@@d.d.jacksonpoetryproject Oh I know, not ideal! There is a reason...after a bunch of infuriating upload attempts where Apple blocked my video for copyright infringement, this was a way to actually show, albeit micro-sized, what I was referring to. I've linked to the videos in the description too so you can watch them full size.
"You can be a worse person, do less, be less creative, stop caring, and succeed in spite of all that with the help of our product." -A pitch from a company with the billions of dollars and a customer base of creative professionals.
That's exactly it. Seems like a really mismatched message. Or they've let the truth slip about their true values.
@@thegentlerebelYour "cry for help" fourth wall breaking comment actually made me chuckle. Thanks for that.
@@apricotdog 😀
If the point of an advertisement is to show you something's best use case scenario, then it feels like these ads are targeting lazy, selfish people and encouraging them to use AI to indulge in it further. This ad campaign feels like it has polar opposite values as Apple's iconic 1984 commercial
Yes 100%! Such a good point about the contrast with the 1984 ad. It's like we've come full circle and they changed their mind, The Party was right after all
It’s worse when genius were the “Crazy Ones”, but being a “genius” with Ai is antithetical to that
what people don't know is you can just say "i'm sorry, i don't remember, what's your name again?" and after the initial minute of awkwardness it'll be fine
Haha, exactly! Those adverts do seem to provide solutions to problems that never existed in the first place.
But it's not machiavellian enough, you see.
Can chime in and confirm that you don't even have to apologize and ask for their name, you can go "so uhhhhhhhh" and just squint and stare intensely at them like you're trying really really hard to remember their name.
I can't remember names unless I repeat them at least ten times while staring at people's faces, or I hear their name at least 5-6 times in a conversation before I have to remember on my own. So many attempts to remember that just had my friends laugh because how do I remember someone's allergies and diet restrictions from them saying it to someone else in a conversation across the room, but then fail at retaining a name even if it's the fourth time I've been told that.
I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't want any of us to interact without going through an AI filter.
Now that's truly dystopian.
I fear you might be right. Perhaps the same with all the major tech companies. Very dystopian.
lol i definitely get what you're saying. it's like the ads are selling an implicit idea that what is most important in relationships with other humans is that you appear in a good light at all times, and that this is more important than genuinely connecting or sharing anything real about yourself--emotions, uncomfortable truths, frictions, etc. like you said, it's apple technology as the ultimate image management tool.
Yeah 100%!
Lie to your family, lie to your friends, lie to yourself only with our new iPhone
The most accurate sales pitch!
Haaha, liephone
I haven't seen any of these ads, and thank goodness. We just keep sliding deeper into dystopia every day.
Best avoided!
same and think goodness. I've been bombarded with enough AI nonsense.
The "nobody walks like Zach" line really seems intentional, like the writer wanted to show that AI actually can't replace communication skill.
Otherwise, "We'll help you remember more stuff, but you'll still fuck it up, you weirdo" is such a strange pitch.
That's a great point. Must be intentional. I love how you put that! Though I kind of like the idea that they went for your pitch approach.
They should have doubled down and let her say "nobody hilariously walks like Zach"
The apple AI commercials feel like you can get away with being dishonest with your family, friends and co-workers and get away with it using Apple AI. Its just a strange way to pitch something. Its like selling hammers with a commercial showing you breaking into a bank with a hammer.
Absolutely! Ha nice analogy.😀
Theres a few ads in Indonesia like to take that type of approach.
@@julinaonYT It's a shame. I wonder if we will see it increasingly happen as a trend
It's not even using Siri to remember the guys name that bugs me, it's the coming up with some BS about how he walks making him memorable. She obviously remembers their meeting quite well, but she can't even go "Yeah! I really enjoyed our discussion about _____."? She just makes up some stupid superficial nonsense.
They probably asked Ai what a "wholesome" use case for their product could be
and they created this orphan-crushing-machine by accident.
Or they've just said the quiet part out loud. Awfully detached of the human spirit.
I do wonder. Quiet part out loud sounds like it! They didn't realise what they were actually letting slip.
The focus should be Apple AI allowing people to do things that don’t matter so they can spent time with people that we care about. AI should enhance our relationships not replace them.
Horrible adverts.
And what would it do? What could AI do that would fit that? The only thing I've seen is Adobe's AI assisted rotoscoping tool. I haven't seen anything else that would fit. It's almost all overriding human expression. AI doesn't seem like it has many uses in the consumer market. Predictive tools for hurricanes, yeah, great. Optimization stuff for roads or structures or something, cool. But... What in the consumer market does AI actually offer that is at all useful or helpful?
Absolutely - it seems to be promoted as a tool for disconnection rather than to support any of those sources of true meaning in life.
@@plzletmebefrank It's a really important question. It's like there's a real roadblock to imagination for the consumer market outside of specific tools for particular tasks - organising things a bit quicker and that kind of thing?
My phone has started suggesting short replies to text messages I receive. For example, my mum sent me a photo of her walking in nature, and one of the suggested replies was something like, "That's really beautiful." While it was a beautiful image, I don’t want to just click on a multiple-choice response, it feels like the phone is putting words in my mouth, making me feel like my own thoughts or expression aren’t needed. If someone sends me short replies to a message, I can’t help but wonder if they even read what I said or if it was just the AI responding for them.
I've noticed that too. Absolutely agree about the words in the mouth thing - it's weird with any generative text (like ChatGPT), it feels alien, however much it might try to emulate your voice, it isn't your voice. And yes, it puts you in a state of distrust about any reply like that. Fobbed off by the other person. Not worthy of a real reply etc.
@@thegentlerebel As for that Apple ad where she asks her phone for the name of the guy she met. As you said, she could have used her memories of him and the time they met to greet him with a smile of recognition and if his name didn't pop into her head after a bit of natural conversation she could ask him. Instead she went over the top and lied about remembering his name. The ad encourages starting a relationship with a white lie. 😂The whole series of ads normalises lies and fake interactions with friends and family.
It's been a while my phone started doing this... And I never clicked, even when they send me a yes or no question, cause wtf
Sometimes the app gives me some options through the notifications so I don't even have to actually open the message... I'm really into tech, but I don't have many friends and I value the few I do have. I don't want to take our connection for granted
@@andrew08 That's such a good point - it's the use of tech rather than the tech itself that is an issue. What is it eroding in terms of the stuff that brings meaning to life - like friendships and creativity.
Brings me back to disingenuous canned responses like 'sorry for your loss' and the like.
They are trying to turn us into robots.
Your video just popped up on my homepage, thank you for talking about this!! I started seeing those Apple ads a few days ago and was completely baffled with how shallow and pointless the features were they were advertising. I haven’t seen the Bella Ramsay ones, but I’ve seen the ‘catch up quick’ one a lot…… where someone doesn’t read a prospectus and needs to present it in depth to a board room of people.. so the AI gives three dot points… what??? If you don’t read something people will know you don’t know what ur your talking about. It’s basically “Use our technology so you don’t have to do your work properly, and somehow stumble through a presentation on a topic you don’t know anything about.” Like… okay.
Thanks Bella! I've not seen the catch up quick one. It sounds like exactly the same underlying message. Concerns about the spread of bad information there too - give a presentation about something you haven't researched, people will take your word for it because you are the "expert", and that info will be passed on. You don't know if it's true or not.
great video. we really need to disavow so many normalized aspects of our shared media landscapes.
Thank you - yeah absolutely. It's a bit of a sleep walk, fascination with novelty, etc into some pretty bleak looking landscapes.
I'm so glad to see someone talking about this unsettling ad campaign. It really feels so dehumanizing, and I hope that this isn't really where we're headed as society.
My bet is that the creative humans in charge of the ad tried to find the worst examples of the product that would be accepted by corporate out of protest against the technology.
Yes, I love that angle of thought!
it’s funny, when I first heard about it I thought “oh neat, so enhanced siri?” then I saw the ads and realized it just sucks
Definitely deserve more followers. You're very well spoken.
Thank you very much! Followers scare me.
I would like to see a series of follow-up ads where the character is now having to deal with the collateral effects of having used an iPhone to try to cover up being just kind of a crappy person... On set working on a project they are finding out they dont want to do as they're working on it whilst receiving texts from friends and family who are seriously worried about the character because they've been acting so strangely...
Thank you for putting all this into words! I've had some very negative reactions to their ads, and I was just starting to put it together for myself, when I saw your video. I think they mean to push in work smarter not harder, but many of its examples include people hiding or pretending to do something else. The one with the wife really grinds my gears. Why was she so smug? Your point of everything being a competition really rings true, and I wonder how many apple supporters see the messages in these ads
Thanks Megan! I'm glad we are on the same page. Yes, it's the messaging that we get drip fed through these kinds of ads that create our image of the world. It feels important to pause and take notice of them and ask whether this is really what we want. Are you going to share your reactions to the ads somewhere? Would love to see if you do!
Instead of it being birthday, and instead of it being her husband (too important, too personal), imagine if the ad had been about a coworker’s retirement party instead. Put some throwaway line at the beginning that lets us know she barely knows the guy (“It’s Kevin’s last day.” “Who?” “You know, Kevin from Accounting.”) And then she whips up some shitty low-effort AI movie on her phone to get herself through the awkward situation. That ad would have been much better received. Audiences probably would have found it funny rather than disturbing. Plus it’s the best use case for this kind of impersonal low-effort AI generated movie tech Apple is trying to sell.
Yeah that's a good point and a much better idea! It being someone so close makes it feel really cold hearted.
Great take! You've summarized my discomfort with this over-hyped crap very succinctly. It's not the lack of humanity that's so contentious, but the attempt to replace it.
Thanks, oh yeah absolutely! We are trying to create machines in the image of people while turning people into machines.
Thank you for this. I don’t get ads anymore as I don’t have commercial TV and I use TH-cam Premium, so just get the odd pitch from the creator’s sponsor. So, I’ve not seen these commercials, or much of any commercials for a long time. As a fan of Apple products and the original creative ethos of the company, I find this all rather dispiriting. We know that Apple uses all the usual corporate tricks to avoid taxes and build up a huge pile of cash, but that’s par for the course nowadays. But these ads make me uneasy about Apple’s claims that their new AI won’t be mining our personal data. If the senior execs could look at this stuff and think it’s ok, it undermines any sense I might have that they respect their customers. I have subscribed to your channel.
Hi John, yeah I can't see how any of it could possibly work without personal data mining. Ultimately it won't work work unless they're building the data bank that pulls all sorts of stuff from our devices and those connected/linked to them. It's a minefield. Like the "Zack" ad - what else would it want to store on Zack to be used later? Might it be that down the line we could Siri where we've seen a person before and it would match a face through image recognition or a voice through audio recognition? Thinking through where the slippery slope might end up...Thanks for this!
"Apple Intelligence, suggest me some ideas of ads for Apple Intelligence service, that are weirdly passive agressive towards human relationships, talent and creativity."
"Certainly, maybe you could try these..."
It's been a while apple has been releasing some creepy ads 😂
More people should be talking about this
Yeah! It took a few attempts to get a version of this video that Apple didn't block so they don't make it easy to talk about
I agree, these are some sad ads.
😩 they are
Your voice is a lovely break from a lot of louder, more bombastic channels.
I like the way that you slowly calmly break down the ads and what they are saying, this was a really interesting video to watch.
I'll subscribe! I like the way you talk about things and I like your thoughts!
That's very nice of you to say, thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. There are a lot of loud bombastic channels. Definitely on the lookout for slower, thoughtful, calming folk who approach things in a measured way! Let me know if you find others :)
You hit the nail on the head with how negative and unhealthy all the relationships are, and how the tool just entrenches it. Bumbling dad? Ignore him. Inattentive spouse? We'll help you be inattentive. Bad manager? We'll teach you how to suck up to him. Manipulating acquaintances? We'll enable it.
The fourth wall breaks are very uncanny, too. Apple have somehow managed to give me uncanny valley effect _with humans_.
All very emperor's new clothes.
Spot on. Yes, uncanny valley effect with humans - that's a weird thing. Like the article I read out with the synopsis for each advert. It says there is an author - if so, humans are being trained by AI to become almost human. We are learning how to write from things that only know how to write in a not quite real way. Ouch, my head!
You can't even satirize this stuff. The people making these ads are SO out of touch up and down the ladder that the end result feels like some kind of Lynchian parody of how humans relate to one another.
Oh yes, there is a disconcerting Lynch quality to some of those interactions.
These ads are repulsive. They glorify laziness as heartwarming which is infuriating to anyone with imagination, care or creativity. Genuinely disgusted.
Yeah, it's a dispiriting thing to see (to put it mildly)
Mom is slyly trying to "create" special bonding moments
She's def got somebody else on her mind...
Are you telling me that not real magic aint real? crikey 😂
Jokes aside, i enjoyd this video. You just earned a subscriber :) cheers from Sweden
Haha, so sorry to break it to you in such a brutal way! Thanks so much. Glad to be connected to Sweden!
All of Ai is like this. It’s ALL about pretending you’re good at things while relying on a machine.
The phrase ‘Stolen Valor’ comes to mind. All these people want to be perceived as skilled and talented and on the ball, but giving over your agency to a machine will assure you’re never gonna learn any of these things
Yes, that Stolen Valor parallel fits nicely. It's a deeply unsatisfying place to be - even if people believe you, it doesn't make it true. That's a disturbing place to live in.
It may have been on the Film Courage channel which I heard "the problem with the new generation of filmmakers is that rather than drawing on the experiences of their own relationships and life experiences to infuse into their scripts, they're pantomiming what they expect others to expect based on what they've watched in others films" (paraphrasing). This feels like that - not imitating life, but imitating Mean Girls or Wizards of Waverley Place. Imitating what the laugh track was spliced into. Noise in the system. And yet, this is the essence of AI - the amalgamation of second hand experience, filtered as synthetic experience.
That's such an interesting observation! It seems true that those layers of expectation, perception, and imitation of how we think others believe things to be. In the process we become more disconnected from our sensory/emotional/cognitive perception of how things are. I'd love to read more about this. Thanks!
@@thegentlerebel I found the specific interview I was referencing: "Why Has Writing Gotten So Bad In The Last 20 Years? - Chris Gore"
@ fantastic, thanks! I’ll have a listen 🙏
@@thegentlerebel Also, the term for the Ai synthetic data problem is called "Model Collapse". Sabine Hossenfelder did a video "Scientists warn of AI collapse", and ThePrimeTime did "The Impending AI Model Collapse Problem".
@ yeah I saw that video yesterday. Really interesting and strangely comforting!
These commercials remind me of the stereotypical Husband character of a 1970s sitcom, who would lie and fabricate things to keep his wife and kids from finding out about his wacky scheme or his dumb mistake. Of course the episode would end with the husband getting his comeuppance when everything backfires.
Apparently in Apple's world there is no consequence for being a terrible phony.
My theory: all of these characters are secretly humanoid robots and they are using Apple Intelligence to successfully fool the humans. Maybe the people who wrote the commercials are robots too...
Yes, that's exactly what it's like! Good observation!
These ads feel like *dystopian.*
These ads just come off cold and soulless. AI is suppose to be "innovative" yet it feels so grim and very forced.
It does almost seem like a caricature of peoples' perceptions of how AI would be if it was completely ineffective.
the crush ad was not original, the gameboy pokémon advert had animated pokémon get on a bus and the busdriver - drives the bus into a car crusher and watches the whole bus full of pokémon be crushed down into a small cube, and he takes out a game all happy that he has them all…
that advert was horrible for kids, the pokémon animated all terrified and screaming…
but made a lot of buzz
an te ad did make a lot of buzz for apple
Oh yeah, I remember that! Yeah, buzz is an interesting thing. I'm fascinated by the question of whether it is universally good to get it or whether there are damaging consequences in the long run as the source of the buzz (the story I now associate with Apple's values re: organic creativity) has a negative impact on brand loyalty.
Bella Ramsey just accepts any job in order to pay for her new Apple AI phone. She really can't be picky anymore.
To me, this seems to be intended to be used by socially anxious people. The issue is, these skills won't ever develop if they are never practiced, and so these people could easily get caught in a feedback loop of insecurity. People are too afraid to make a mistake or look foolish, so they just don't try.
But if you have an AI telling you what to do, then you can remove your responsibility from the equation. If it works, then you can keep using it without having to develop the skills yourself, and if it doesn't it isn't your fault, it's the AI, and it's easy to give AI the benefit of the doubt when it DOESN'T work, because it works "well enough" for most people.
Yeah for sure. Good point! It's a sticking plaster at best! Doesn't do anything to help grow, change, or develop a person's skills in the long run.
These feel like they're directed by ari aster or something, they're strangely insidious. Maybe that's part of their angle, get people to talk about it?
Yeah, unsettling. I'm not sure they are all the way into the "get people talking about it" class of marketing because they don't quite push the extreme button. The insidiousness means that people haven't been talking about it as much as I was expecting. As is the case with a lot of this stuff, it subtly reprograms our sense of normality and expectation beneath the surface.
The reason why these ads make you feel so uncomfortable is due to the uncanny valley. A company is not a person, the Ai that helped make this is not a person. There is no humanity involved in this. It is a cold unfeeling malaise in video form attempting to entice you into purchasing a product
Yeah the uncanny valley is strong here. "I know what humans like". We see/hear it explictly in the Google Gemini ads - where they are chatting with disembodied almost human voice as if it's a person - interactions are cold and empty. There's no in-between co-regulation and contradiction that we get in normal human relationships.
good video
Thank you!
I thought that humankind invented tools and systems to make difficult/dangerous things less difficult and dangers, and didn't invent those things to make easy things forgettable and meaningless.
We do and we do! We are great at finding destructive ways to exploit and undermine good things. Especially when there's a buck to be made.
Comment for engagement
Deep expression of agreement
Thanks, this made me chuckle
I feel like the "Write Smarter" is meant to be for people that don't wanna write corpo speak.
I feel that applies to many people in a job? You wanna write in a more casual style, but company expects "professional tone" and whatever. So you spend 5~10 minutes rewording the dumb e-mail to sound "professional". Instead let the AI do it and write as you like.
@@MaakaSakuranbo yeah that is consistent with the other one where the guy is angry about his dessert being stolen. You can let off steam by freely expressing yourself and then it will get reworded by AI to have a more desirable outcome before someone else reads it. But the characters in the ads just come across as buffoons rather than real/relatable.
@@thegentlerebel Fair, and well the text show in the ad sounds very stilted anyway haha
The new campaign is from an ad comany and noit from people that actually understand Apple as a brand. Apple is a feeling and it invokes it in its customer base. The Apple intelligence ads are made by people that THINK they’re funny and clever but they miss the entire point of why Apple users buy Apple products. Instead of using these bland characters (like the new Bella Ramsey ads that makes a Bella look kinda like an uncaring A-hole) instead maybe using the ads to put a spotlight on Siri and Siri improvements and how AI can improve an persona I want to like but find to be mostly utterly useless.
It really has felt like all this ai pushing is just trying to take humans out of the equation as much as possible
Yeah, it's the complete opposite focus of what it ought to be when it comes to creativity, art, care, and human relationships.
What the freak.
quite!
Says the guy sitting in a box of zero creativity
You are a weird guy in the weird room finding ads weird.
Our advice: Don't watch ads. Buy secondhand.
It's not even using Siri to remember the guys name that bugs me, it's the coming up with some BS about how he walks making him memorable. She obviously remembers their meeting quite well, but she can't even go "Yeah! I really enjoyed our discussion about _____."? She just makes up some stupid superficial nonsense.
YES! Absolutely. If someone said that to me all I'd be thinking is "hmm, I wonder what's weird about the way I walk." And my abiding memory would be "I remember Bella, she's the person who thinks I have a funny walk". All she needed to do was ask him a question and show some interest in him right now!
I would like to see a series of follow-up ads where the character is now having to deal with the collateral effects of having used an iPhone to try to cover up being just kind of a crappy person... On set working on a project they are finding out they dont want to do as they're working on it whilst receiving texts from friends and family who are seriously worried about the character because they've been acting so strangely...
Haha me too! "Don't take short cuts, they will always come back to haunt you!" I want to see them on the set of Dogge Days with this dawning realisation that it might have been worth reading the pitch after all.