Anthropic’s newest ad is creeping people out
Anthropic's latest advertisement, titled 'There’s hope in hard questions,' has drawn criticism for its dark, doomer-ist tone and unsettling imagery. Industry peers and critics have questioned the company's marketing strategy, suggesting it feels disconnected from typical corporate messaging.
Why it matters
The backlash highlights the tension between AI companies attempting to position themselves as 'ethical' and the public's perception of their marketing tactics.
Anthropic is known for its creative marketing, but the AI company may have been a little bit too creative when it conjured up its most recent advertisement.
Titled “There’s hope in hard questions,” the company’s latest ad has been unsettling viewers with its weird imagery and doomer-ist tone.
The ad begins with a video of a burning house (not exactly a heartwarming start) before pivoting to a series of still images. These images include: a crowd of people being surveilled by facial recognition, a homeless person sleeping on the street, rows upon rows of tombstones in a cemetery, and what appears to be a group of laborers toiling in a mine where (presumably) raw materials for smartphones are being dug up.
Meanwhile, a voice-over track features different people asking questions like “Can AI be trusted?” and “Who’s gonna hit the brakes if we need to?”
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