America’s Game. The mecca of sports. For most Americans, the Super Bowl is a time for celebration. It brings together different groups of individuals around their television, watching the two best teams in the NFL duke it out for all the glory.
For most, the game is the prize of the night, and even non-die-hard sports fans enjoy the thrill of the stakes at hand. I am in this group of people, but I am not just there for the game. Alongside millions of Americans, the advertisements are what pull me in each year. A single 30-second ad goes for millions of dollars every year. The companies that make these risks cannot blow this opportunity, and because of this, we as people have gotten some of the greatest and most creative commercials ever out of this game. With all of this being said, as these billion-dollar companies pump out more and more AI-generated content and nuance into our lives, what went down on February 8th represented everything wrong with the direction this AI craze is heading.
As commercials were cutting in and out during the timeouts or brief breaks during the Super Bowl LV showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, I felt like I kept seeing the same slop on the screen over and over again. According to a New York Times article, “A.I. Blitzes The Big Game” out of the 66 commercials run during the game, 15 of those spots were run by an AI company or featured some sort of AI generation involved.
The most disturbing AI-themed commercial was one from the Ring Doorbell company, who are famous for cameras that connect to your iPhone to monitor your home. In their big splash of a commercial, a family loses their dog and the family activates the new “search party” feature on the app. Although the family found their dog using this feature, it revealed that when activated, the ring uses AI to log in to all of the ring cameras in your neighborhood and scan for the dog. This illustrates not only a huge invasion of privacy, but it seems like a complete waste of time. People, thankfully, did not seem to be pleased with the announcement, and Amazon, which owns Ring, canceled its partnership with the camera company involved. But this alone shows that these companies will go to no limits to gather our data and information, as well as invade our privacy for the sake of making more money.
Besides the monetary benefits of some of the changes these companies will make, CEOs like Sam Altman have no shame in making people feel obligated to let AI take control of their mind’s capabilities. Creativity and problem-solving are the reasons AI is where it’s at today, so why do they feel the need to promote slop and have AI do things such as plan your road trip for you, or give answers to your homework? AI is meant to be used to assist, not do. Most people see this, but rich investors and billionaires who don’t even do their own dishes anymore think it’s cool that you can make a painting of an elephant walk two feet. However, the worst commercial of the night by far was a company promoting an AI system that can complete spreadsheets and such for you, so you can “take the work day off.” Is this where we’re going? Is no one doing anything?
Look, I am not against AI and what it could do for people. But, with technology being such a big part of the world, promoting AI as something that replaces human activity altogether is garbage. At least the halftime show was fun.