News AI
November 11th, 2024

Misguided Apple Intelligence ads

Apple's advertising campaign for Apple Intelligence faces criticism for depicting technology as a tool for laziness, suggesting users rely on it for basic tasks instead of showcasing its empowering potential.

Read original articleLink Icon
Misguided Apple Intelligence ads

Apple's recent advertising campaign for its Apple Intelligence features has drawn criticism for portraying the technology as a tool for laziness rather than empowerment. The ads depict scenarios where individuals rely on Apple Intelligence to produce work or remember important dates, suggesting a lack of effort on their part. One ad features a man who surprises his boss with a well-written email, while another shows a woman using the technology to create a birthday video for her husband after forgetting the occasion. Critics argue that these portrayals reinforce negative stereotypes about users and fail to highlight the positive potential of the technology. Suggestions for more constructive advertising include showcasing Apple Intelligence assisting individuals with disabilities or enhancing meaningful connections, rather than promoting a narrative of dependency. The overall sentiment is that Apple should focus on demonstrating how its products can genuinely support users in their endeavors rather than enabling complacency.

- Apple Intelligence ads criticized for promoting laziness.

- Ads depict users relying on technology for basic tasks.

- Critics suggest showcasing positive uses of Apple Intelligence.

- Calls for a shift in advertising narrative to highlight empowerment.

- The campaign reflects a departure from Apple's historically impactful advertising.

Related

Apple releases first preview of its long-awaited iPhone AI

Apple releases first preview of its long-awaited iPhone AI

Apple has launched Apple Intelligence, enhancing Siri and automating tasks in iOS 18.1 beta. Key features include a redesigned interface and AI-generated summaries, with public release expected later this year.

Google's Olympics ad went viral for all the wrong reasons

Google's Olympics ad went viral for all the wrong reasons

Google's Gemini AI chatbot advertisement during the Olympics faced backlash for suggesting AI can replace human creativity, prompting concerns about its implications in creative fields and diminishing personal expression.

Apple's new AI is magically mediocre

Apple's new AI is magically mediocre

Apple's new AI technology, Apple Intelligence, launches in October 2024 with features like email summaries and image editing. It prioritizes privacy but lacks advanced functionalities at launch.

Apple Intelligence is available today on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Apple Intelligence is available today on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Apple has launched Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, featuring advanced writing tools, improved Siri, and enhanced photo management, while prioritizing user privacy and future updates for expanded capabilities.

Gross Apple Marketing

Gross Apple Marketing

Apple's recent Intelligence ads face criticism for portraying AI as deceptive in communication, raising concerns about the message conveyed. In contrast, Canonical's marketing is viewed more positively.

Link Icon 20 comments
By @ethbr1 - 6 months
>> Where’s the positive ad with [...] a businessperson using it to understand a complex report dumped on them minutes before a meeting?

There is literally exactly that ad.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BK8bnkcT0Ng

Imho, it's one of the best "Why AI?" ads I've seen so far.

By @lsy - 6 months
By using humor, I think Apple is attempting to avoid previous failures in the advertising space where consumers recoiled from the unsavoriness of using an AI to replace a genuinely important interaction. In that sense it's kind of a clever way of alluding to consumers' potential use cases without taking on the commitment of standing behind those use cases, and leaving consumers ethically on the hook for their decisions to use these tools interpersonally.

On the other side though, it definitely portrays the AI user as a sort of slacker, which is an interesting way to advertise a tentpole feature.

By @mrandish - 6 months
> Is the message that Apple Intelligence is aimed at the perpetually lazy?

This attitude seems aligned with Apple's general assumption (and apparent preference) that iOS users remain passive media consumers.

By @loughnane - 6 months
I don’t like it but Apple—like other firms— aims at making money of the masses.

The truth is there are a ton of folks like this. As long as there’s an ad campaign that gives them permission to offload a human experience to a tech company they’ll feel ok doing it. That’s gross but it makes people more and more reliant on apple’s latest feature and so keeps them locked in their ecosystem. I see why Apple does it.

People who know better look down on this but there’s lots of folks with money who don’t know better.

By @iamwpj - 6 months
Remember -- the lazy, bad at your job, etc. assumptions are attributes you are putting on the characters in the ads. At no point in the world of the ad are these indicated by any of the other participants. Side character emotions are typically limited to confusion, interest, admiration, disbelief, and the ilk. Ultimately in each of the examples the participants are left holding what they "wanted", be it a sentimental birthday wish or a business correspondence that is "up to snuff".
By @caycep - 6 months
i miss the aspiration/inspiration apple ads a few years back. I don't like the snarky tone of whoever's running the current campaigns. I assume it depends on who's running the creative direction of that dept but still...
By @rty32 - 6 months
> In the first ad, Apple Intelligence enables a goof-off who wastes time and annoys his colleagues to surprise his boss with an unexpectedly well-written email. It’s not clear that the boss is impressed; he just can’t believe the guy would have written a professional message.

This feels... weird. If the ad was released early 2023, it would still be relevant. But hey, we are now at Nov 2024, exactly after two years after ChatGPT was released. Anyone who has been half paying attention to "AI" wouldn't be impressed any more with a formal, professionally written email from anybody. Saying that as someone whose performance review had evidence of being "enhanced" with ChatGPT but didn't find it surprising.

Well, what's more weird is the setup itself. Do bosses expect to read this kind of super formal email from their direct reports? Do people actually write first versions of emails like that? Something is off here. At least I don't think it ever occurred to me that I need to "rewrite an email to my boss using a professional tone" to my direct boss.

By @grahamj - 6 months
I mostly echo thoughts already posted here but I’ll just add: Both of these only really work during this brief moment in time where a lot of people still are not familiar with the capabilities of AI. If either of the recipients were, they would be insulted Or at least see right through the senders’ intentions.

These won’t age well.

By @swiftcoder - 6 months
The second one really floors me, because my iPhone already (a) flag birthdays of close friends/families, and (b) produces memories videos of events, all without "Apple Intelligence".

Is their tent-pole feature really just "we made Photos' existing features slightly more general"?

By @m463 - 6 months
It could be that humans didn't create these ads, but because of the training data they are controversial and garner much attention, like this article. :)
By @orev - 6 months
These ads remind me of the ones (not from Apple) that were being shown when car infotainment systems started coming out.

Cue the guy driving a carpool full of work colleagues who receives a text from his wife, which the car then reads aloud to everyone (I don’t remember it exactly, but this was the gist of it). Yeah, it makes a funny ad, but it also highlighted everyone’s exact reason why they don’t really want this type of thing.

In the AI cases, it’s about incompetent people being able to appear competent, while the people really putting in the effort are just suckers to be fooled.

By @plagiarist - 6 months
I have felt the exact same about these ads ever since seeing them. I have no idea how these were approved by the company. They couldn't think of any other uses for these tools than forgetful slackers compensating? It's a depressing glimpse into the future.
By @qnleigh - 6 months
The ad that bothers me most is actually the one where the guy just reads an AI-generated summary of a document at a meeting without having looked at the original. This is an amazing usecase for AI and I'm excited for it to get to that point, but it still just makes s** up way too often to be used blindly like this. These ad will probably succeed and normalizing doing this kind of thing, which means more noise.
By @Springtime - 6 months
> Why would Apple want to promote the idea that Apple Intelligence can bail you out from failing to pay attention to the most important people in your life?

I mean, the forgotten birthday/event that's results in a scramble to get/do something is not an uncommon concept in ads, where some product sweeps into the rescue. I'd imagine it's almost a cliche because it's effective.

By @vundercind - 6 months
Is it just critics and writers on the internet not taking these ads as jokes, or are normal people also reading them as serious? That seems to me the key question re: whether these are mistakes.
By @baggy_trough - 6 months
A bigger problem is that, so far, Apple Intelligence is truly awful. It's like they tried to put Siri into more places without making it any smarter than it was 10 years ago.
By @tylerchilds - 6 months
> Imagine you work at Apple’s ad agency. What ads would you like to see showcasing Apple Intelligence features?

Nice try, Apple Intelligence.

By @PeterStuer - 6 months
The author's surprise, I would even dare to say bafflement, about the ads choices are hinged on a believe in a form meritocracy. People facing concequences for their deliberate (in)actions. Hence helping the dyslexic is valourous while the lazy or inattentive less so.

If however your ethics are based on equality of outcome, then that distiction does not hold. You do not see any problem with the lazy or incompetent getting the same result as anybody else. In fact, you would regard any other outcome as unethical.

From the latter beleive system, these Apple ads make perfect sense.

By @self_awareness - 6 months
The first one is not that bad, although it shows perfectly what is the intended target audience for this function.

However the second one... I don't want to enter the reality where this happens. Despicable.

By @wuming2 - 6 months
Apple Learning would have been not only aligned with reality but also averaged expectations and marketing materials. Learning may have led to some Intelligence. In due time.