Meta launched a new AI optimism ad set to a song about human extinction
David Bowie's song "Five Years," which Meta used in a supposedly inspiring advertisement, is about humans learning that they have five years left to live before the apocalypse. Meta's newest advertisement begins with a black-and-white shot of an eye, showing us what someone sees as they read countless panicked headlines about how AI is going to take our jobs, isolate us, and spark a global crisis. "Some people will have you believe AI is going to make us feel less connected.
Key Takeaways
- That it's going to leave us behind," a voiceover says.
" Suddenly, the video shifts to color, and shows a cycle of different people opening their eyes and smiling.
- " That's a nice sentiment - pretty convenient for a company betting hundreds of billions of dollars that AI will revolutionize humanity.
But the strangest part of the advertisement is not that we're watching these happy moments play out via Instagram posts.
- It is a song about the human race panicking after learning they will die in a mass-extinction event in five years.
If you're not familiar with Bowie's music, this track might sound happy and inspiring, matching the ad's upbeat tone.
- "Meta has always believed in giving people the power to share, connect, and shape your world in the ways you want," he wrote alongside the video.
"As we enter this next wave with AI, we continue to believe the future is for everyone.
- Palantir, a company that builds AI surveillance systems for the government, is named after Palantir, a seeing stone from the "Lord of the Rings" franchise that the Dark Lord uses to spy on his enemies.
That it's going to leave us behind," a voiceover says. " Suddenly, the video shifts to color, and shows a cycle of different people opening their eyes and smiling. Then, we see a couple dancing on a rooftop, pointing at a rainbow; a group of teens swimming in a lake; a child frolicking in a field; friends embracing after time apart.
But the strangest part of the advertisement is not that we're watching these happy moments play out via Instagram posts. It's that the soundtrack to the ad is the David Bowie song "Five Years. " If you are not familiar with this song, I urge you to give it a listen , read the lyrics , and think about what it is trying to say.
It seems clear to me, but I studied poetry in college, so as a control for this experiment, I asked my brother - a blockchain analyst who loves Claude Code and does not read for fun - if he could tell me what the song is about. "I thought climate change at first, then zombie apocalypse, then an asteroid hitting the earth," he told me. It is a song about the human race panicking after learning they will die in a mass-extinction event in five years.
For more details please read the original article at TechCrunch AI.
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