Meta’s New Feel-Good AI Ad Uses a Song About the World Ending
Meta is facing criticism for using David Bowie's song 'Five Years' in a feel-good AI advertisement. Critics point out that the song is about an impending apocalypse, which contrasts sharply with the optimistic tone of the ad.
Why it matters
The incident highlights the disconnect between corporate marketing strategies and the cultural context of the media they utilize, particularly regarding public perception of AI.
“Call us optimists, call us dreamers, call us whatever the hell you want — but we’re betting on people, and we like those odds,” the narrator says, as a toddler plays with a butterfly, two parents laugh with their infant, and Jalen Brunson waves at the Knicks Championship Parade. (The ad also takes special care to highlight use cases for its controversial smart glasses that are not, say, harassing women while surreptitiously recording them.)
The snippet of “Five Years” used in the ad includes the following lyrics:
I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat, skinny people
And all the tall, short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
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