{"id":30460,"date":"2025-06-25T09:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T09:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=30460"},"modified":"2025-06-25T09:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T09:28:24","slug":"why-does-every-commercial-for-a-i-think-youre-a-moron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=30460","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You\u2019re a Moron?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ads for consumer A.I. are struggling to imagine how the product could improve your day \u2014 unless you\u2019re a barely functioning idiot.<\/p>\n

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In my favorite Meta A.I. ad, a woman tells her boyfriend that she\u2019s excited to have him meet her parents \u2014 before impishly mentioning that her father is a thermodynamicist at NASA. The befuddled boyfriend rushes home, phone in hand. \u201cHey Meta,\u201d he asks. \u201cWhat the heck is a thermodynamicist?\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next 24 hours, our protagonist talks to Meta\u2019s chatbot obsessively. He talks to Meta as he settles into the back seat of a rideshare. He talks to Meta while walking with his morning coffee, swaddled in an oversize hoodie. He talks to Meta while shaving for work. And when the night of the dinner finally arrives, he stands in front of the father and, looking stricken, reels off a line about how excited he is to discuss \u201cthe transition from liquid fuel to hybrid propellants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vision of life here is bizarre. Why is our protagonist rushing everywhere, like a perpetually late college student? Why doesn\u2019t he ask his girlfriend<\/em> what a thermodynamicist is? (She should know: That\u2019s what her dad does.) Better yet, why can\u2019t he just have a conversation with the father about it, like a normal person with a capacity for being curious about someone else\u2019s life?<\/p>\n

This commercial\u2019s \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d vibe is not a bug: This is how Silicon Valley has tried to sell artificial intelligence to consumers, at least on television. In commercial after commercial, humans are oblivious, enfeebled, barely functioning idiots beset by more tasks, stimuli and demands on their time than anyone could reasonably handle. In another ad, a man finds that his cat has eaten his daughter\u2019s pet goldfish, Frank. He wants to buy another but can\u2019t remember where he got the first one. Enter Meta. The chatbot alerts him that the store is closing, so the man scampers to his car \u2014 but when he reaches the store, he can\u2019t remember what Frank even looked like. Again, he petitions Meta for help. I suppose Meta is meant to be saving the child, and therefore the father, from unhappiness, but what it actually seems to be doing is sparing them any feelings that might lend meaning to their lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The most galling ad features a woman who is hosting a \u201cMoby Dick\u201d book club. It\u2019s unclear whether she has actually read any of the book. What is <\/em>clear is that she doesn\u2019t have the time or desire to think about it. No worry: Meta gives her a Melville-for-Dummies gloss on what the white whale represents (the vastness of life and meaninglessness of existence), and even suggests some conversation starters.<\/p>\n

The people in these commercials are motivated by laziness and incuriosity, even when it comes to the most intimate of concerns. In a commercial for Google\u2019s Gemini, a father explains that his daughter\u2019s dream is to be just like the Olympic hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. He wants to help his daughter send her a letter. \u201cI\u2019m pretty good with words, but this has to be just <\/em>right,\u201d the man says. \u201cSo Gemini, help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is.\u201d The unintentionally hilarious subtext here is that McLaughlin-Levrone would receive a letter from a young fan, find the prose lacking and throw it in the trash; the less funny assumption is that someone could be more moved by an A.I. letter than by the unpolished emotion of an enthusiastic child.<\/p>\n

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Ads for consumer A.I. are struggling to imagine how the product could improve your day \u2014 unless you\u2019re a barely functioning idiot.In my favorite Meta A.I. ad, a woman tells her boyfriend that she\u2019s excited to have him meet her parents \u2014 before impishly mentioning that her father is a thermodynamicist at NASA. The befuddled boyfriend rushes home, phone in hand. \u201cHey Meta,\u201d he asks. \u201cWhat the heck is a thermodynamicist?\u201dOver the next 24 hours, our protagonist talks to Meta\u2019s chatbot obsessively. He talks to Meta as he settles into the back seat of a rideshare. He talks to Meta while walking with his morning coffee, swaddled in an oversize hoodie. He talks to Meta while shaving for work. And when the night of the dinner finally arrives, he stands in front of the father and, looking stricken, reels off a line about how excited he is to discuss \u201cthe transition from liquid fuel to hybrid propellants.\u201dThe vision of life here is bizarre. Why is our protagonist rushing everywhere, like a perpetually late college student? Why doesn\u2019t he ask his girlfriend what a thermodynamicist is? (She should know: That\u2019s what her dad does.) Better yet, why can\u2019t he just have a conversation with the father about it, like a normal person with a capacity for being curious about someone else\u2019s life?This commercial\u2019s \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d vibe is not a bug: This is how Silicon Valley has tried to sell artificial intelligence to consumers, at least on television. In commercial after commercial, humans are oblivious, enfeebled, barely functioning idiots beset by more tasks, stimuli and demands on their time than anyone could reasonably handle. In another ad, a man finds that his cat has eaten his daughter\u2019s pet goldfish, Frank. He wants to buy another but can\u2019t remember where he got the first one. Enter Meta. The chatbot alerts him that the store is closing, so the man scampers to his car \u2014 but when he reaches the store, he can\u2019t remember what Frank even looked like. Again, he petitions Meta for help. I suppose Meta is meant to be saving the child, and therefore the father, from unhappiness, but what it actually seems to be doing is sparing them any feelings that might lend meaning to their lives.The most galling ad features a woman who is hosting a \u201cMoby Dick\u201d book club. It\u2019s unclear whether she has actually read any of the book. What is clear is that she doesn\u2019t have the time or desire to think about it. No worry: Meta gives her a Melville-for-Dummies gloss on what the white whale represents (the vastness of life and meaninglessness of existence), and even suggests some conversation starters.The people in these commercials are motivated by laziness and incuriosity, even when it comes to the most intimate of concerns. In a commercial for Google\u2019s Gemini, a father explains that his daughter\u2019s dream is to be just like the Olympic hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. He wants to help his daughter send her a letter. \u201cI\u2019m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right,\u201d the man says. \u201cSo Gemini, help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is.\u201d The unintentionally hilarious subtext here is that McLaughlin-Levrone would receive a letter from a young fan, find the prose lacking and throw it in the trash; the less funny assumption is that someone could be more moved by an A.I. letter than by the unpolished emotion of an enthusiastic child.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30462,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30463,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30460\/revisions\/30463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}