Apple has reportedly apologized for its tone-deaf āCrush!ā ad that sparked a furious backlash with artists, musicians and other creators. AdAge reports that Apple said the video āmissed the markā and has scrapped plans to run the cutesy-turned-cringey commercial on TV.
Itās clear that Apple intended for the ad to serve as a metaphor for all the myriad creative tools one has when they throw down $1,000 or more for a new iPad Pro. Run during Tuesdayās event, the video shows a series of musical instruments and creative tools, including a guitar, drums, trumpet, amplifiers, record player, TV and much more. āAll I Ever Need Is Youā by Sonny & Cher soundtracks the clip.
Soon, itās revealed that the objects are all sitting on an industrial crusher. The crusher descends upon the scattered creative instruments, exploding in plumes of colorful smoke. But when the crusher pulls back up, itās revealed that everything was transformed into a shiny new iPad Pro.
A decade ago, this ad likely wouldnāt have been a big deal. But Appleās marketers completely whiffed on the context of the moment. The ad comes weeks before Apple will take the stage at WWDC to announce its generative AI features that its investors have been salivating for.
Generative AI, as you may have heard, needs something to train on ā and that means humansā work. It trains on existing content to make algorithmically generated words, pictures, music or who knows what else. It also has the capability to put those same creators ā most of whom donāt have cushy jobs at Apple or other Big Five tech companies ā out of work as corporations and consumers eagerly adopt the robots destined to put creators on the unemployment line.
Context is everything, and Apple failed spectacularly there. Its ad serves as a spectacularly perfect metaphor for generative AIās potential to crush human creation, turning us all into āprompt artistsā who type words into text boxes to replace their years of training and experience. (Granted, generative AI has genuinely exciting applications, too, but much more needs to be made of the society-level chaos it can and will unleash.)
āCreativity is in our DNA at Apple, and itās incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,ā Tor Myhren, Apple VP of marketing communications, told AdAge. āOur goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and weāre sorry.ā
Hey, an apology means something. But weāll see what tone Apple adopts next month when it rolls out the tools that set the stage for the apology in the first place. Something tells me that train is out of the station and will be plowing forward full steam, no matter how much creativity the company has in its DNA.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-apologizes-for-its-tone-deaf-ad-that-crushed-human-creativity-to-make-an-ipad-211116524.html?src=rss