A recent Apple ad for their new iPad Pro tablet that portrayed an industrial press destroying various elements needed for a typical creative process in ad, marketing or film making (read: TV, musical instruments, books and such) invited major wrath among many well placed global celebrities as well as ad and marketing industry stalwarts.

If you’re wondering what all the hullaballoo was about, watch the ad here. 

While Apple must have spent a good amount of time and resources creating this ad, and while their marketing and branding team might have felt it was a solid way to portray the effectiveness of the features being introduced in the new iPad pro; here’s what led to severe backlash:

The creativity process in ad making, marketing, film making and similar such sub segments are enhanced by the innovations that new age technology provides today.

However, as established several times by industry leaders along the way; technology cannot replace what humans do, it’s meant to support how they do what they do or want to do.

The controversial ad, titled “Crush!”, shows several objects – a record player, guitar, piano, cameras, paint cans, even a classic arcade game machine; all of which gets compressed to eventually turn into the new iPad Pro – in order to show how one device can support all these creative processes and initiatives without the need for anything else. Really?

Fast forward to today, while Apple did formally release an apology for the ad, the core issue persists:

Do technology innovators feel that they should or can build technology that can replace human creativity and logic completely? This then definitely should lead to more support for Sam Altman’s call for AI regulations as well as more support basis what other industry leaders feel about unchecked AI (and also other tech) developments.

• ->Unchecked development of technology is one problem that technologists and law makers need to reevaluate in this current tech climate.
• ->The other lies in keeping a check on how technology innovators portray the best of their products’ capabilities, using the right ethics.

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Take an example here:

Most companies today sport a podcast as part of their content and marketing initiatives. Podcasts are valuable, easy to consume, allow brands to host and own their own show of sorts to create a buzz in their segment.

Yet, out of all the brands out there running podcasts, the ones who have AI avatars doing the hosting or presenting for them are not yet at par with the human effect. Furthermore, an AI avatar cannot yet instill the same level of conversational tactics without sounding robotic, leading to the same often argued upon point – technology is meant to support human initiatives, so that we can achieve more within shorter durations.

The controversial Apple ad is being interpreted as a potential depiction of how the tech industry can lead to cultural and creative devastation; to quote Hollywood actor Hugh Grant who commented the following about the ad on social media platform X, “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.’’

Think about it. If in the future an AI avatar replaced Hugh Grant, would you support it or would you crave for the human acting experience? Wouldn’t you rather vote to see a human act in movies you watch, wouldn’t you rather ask a human actor for autographs or would you prefer a movie full of AI avatars in it?

While having AI avatars in movies can be another good movie medium as an option, the point remains: there has to be a better balance between the human element and unchecked tech and AI innovation.

Apple has long since known to broadcast some pretty interesting commercials. Especially those that grab immediate attention. Yet, this time around, the recent iPad pro ad was not in tune with global creative tastes.

No matter how thin or sleek a device is, it cannot replace the ingenuity that comes with script writing, filming and actual ad and movie shoots (or sets!), it cannot replace the fun that comes with collaborating and building marketing campaigns, it cannot replace how actual creative processes work.

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