San Francisco:
An ad for the new iPad Pro caused a stir Wednesday as an industrial-sized hydraulic press crushes objects associated with human creativity, such as a record player and trumpet, into a sleek tablet.
Social media users immediately criticized the ad, posted by Apple CEO Tim Cook on X, as painfully tone-deaf at a time when the creative community is worried about its future with the rise of generative AI.
“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,” actor Hugh Grant wrote about X.
Set to Sonny and Cher's song “All I ever need is you,” the one-minute ad titled “Crush” sees the pile of creative artifacts, which also include a piano and paint cans, explode under the pressure of Apple's press.
“I'm not sure 'the wanton destruction of all good and beautiful things in this world' was really the vibe you were looking for,” wrote X user Judd Baroff on X.
The ad links to viral TikTok videos of industrial presses and other machines that are viewed by millions of people on the platform.
Many critics pointed to the iconic 1984 commercial that launched the first Mac computer and depicted Apple as a hammer-throwing rebel against a monolith big brother.
“Forty years ago, Apple released the 1984 commercial as a bold statement against a dystopian future. Now that dystopian future is you. Congratulations,” wrote X user Yuval Kardov.
Apple did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
The ad comes as ChatGPT and Dall-E maker OpenAI, as well as other AI giants, face lawsuits from artists and publishers who say their material was used without permission to train AI models.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)