This week, Apple has unveiled a set of artificial intelligence features to the world. The new Apple Intelligence functionality is being touted with two new commercials that pitch a smartphone as a substitute for being attentive and caring. Like that idea, the ads are awful.
The more depressing of the two spots features a wife scrambling to cover her ass after forgetting her husband’s birthday.1 While the children give their father thoughtful gifts to express their love, she stands in the kitchen making faces:
What is this awful face?
In slapdash fashion, the woman instructs her phone to make a slideshow of “woodworking with kids”. After it’s completed the task, she presents the result completely unchecked, for her husband to view. As the ad ends, she walks away in smug slow-motion, with a look that says “Phew! My phone saved me from having to put more than 13 seconds’ worth of thought into my husband’s birthday, which apparently it forgot to remind me of. Isn’t that great?!”
It’s not. It’s a sad, dehumanizing message. It didn’t have to be. Though Apple Intelligence has not wowed me thus far, AI photo collections look wonderful. Letting folks relive the past by surfacing forgotten images could be incredible. This, however, is anything but.
I don’t know, maybe a message of “You’re a lazy shitheel, but thanks to your phone, you can hide the truth!” will sell iPhones. Even if it does, however, it sure shouldn’t make anybody feel good.
Footnotes:
The ad is archived here. ↩︎
