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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"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/
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}
{1, 1, 3, b}
{1, 2, 2, b}
{2, 2, 2, b}
{1, 1, 3, 10}
{1, 2, 2, 10}
{2, 2, 2, 9}
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...".
...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)?
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?
That video specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m0MoYKwVTM
I managed to find the ad elsewhere
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?
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.
It's unbelievable that someone would use a brand-new feature on their device 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.
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.
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.
We do indeed live in very different worlds.
We had a similar "moral panic" about Satanic child sacrifices in the 1980s. 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.