McDonald's Stayed Up All Night

McDonalds Netherlands (specifically the Dutch arm of McDonalds) published an AI-generated Christmas themed advertisement, only to turn around and pull the ad after widespread backlash over the ad being a creepy compilation of AI slop "fail" videos. The idea was to show a series of funny, difficult holiday season moments, but it was just downright weird.

The production company behind the video, called "The Sweetshop," would like you to know they worked vewy hawd on. Or, they did. They posted a defense of their work, but it has mysteriously disappeared after only fanning the flames. Here's an excerpt:

"For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club [our in-house AI engine] working in lockstep with the directors"

[…]

"We generated what felt like dailies—thousands of takes—then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production"
—The Sweetshop

This obviously didn't go over well, but consider the following: we're talking about it. Or, well, I'm talking about it. But while this time there was enough of an outcry to get the thing taken down, the same wasn't true for Coca-Cola and their second AI-generated Christmas ad.

Keeping the "COKE" in "COKEhristmas"

Coke is known for doing Christmas-themed commercials, even going as far as having a page on their website humble-bragging about how they "didn't invest Santa" but shaped the Santa we know today.

Last year, they did their first AI-generated Christmas commercial which sparked a good bit of backlash, especially given how far into the uncanny valley the visuals go. Of course, there's all the other criticisms to have about it too, such as the whole "putting artists out of work after training the plagiarism machine on their work without having paid for it in the first place."

Ultimately, they kept the commercial, and must've thought it to be a success because lookie-hoo: a second AI-generated Christmas commercial from Coke. And again, the vocal response is largely, "this looks lazy and gross."

We're entering a phase with technology where it's time to really stop and ask: what're we doin' here? Do we need to be able to generate advertisements for massive brands using supercomputers? Is that—do we?

The Value Is Always Just out of Reach

When it comes to AI criticism, I know that environmental and socioeconomic impacts are front-of-mind. And I agree that those are valid concerns about the current state of the technology. I don't think we should be recklessly deploying wildly over-consumptive machines for the sake of generating forgettable images. And yet: if the systems were cleanly powered, efficient, and justly maintained (as in, not smogging out entire communities), then those are no longer valid criticisms.

Such problems can be fixed with advancements in power production, clean energy, and compute efficiency. I'd love to see all that stuff fixed so that we can enjoy powerful computing without destroying the environment.

What can't be fixed is the intent behind the tech and those pushing it, and as of yet I remain unconvinced that they've got the best interest of humanity in mind.