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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1886 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Why are advertisements for AI so bad?

There's one running during football games where a coach is, I think, supposed to be picking players for the draft. And he starts asking the AI to give him the linebackers with various traits, then asks for the ones with "strong leadership abilities." And that is OBVIOUSLY A TERRIBLE QUESTION to ask AI! All an LLM could maybe do is search news articles to see if any have been called out for it, but in all honesty I'd expect it to tell me "yeah no can do boss." Like there's probably a lot of useful things an LLM can do for NFL draft prep, but asking it to assess intangibles is not one of them!

And there have been others just the same. Apple ran a series of ads where employees used AI to just not do their jobs. Like a producer using it to summarize a script that she then agrees to buy (the benefit being that she didn't get caught not reading it). Or using it to pretend to participate in a meeting you aren't prepared for, or reply to emails. And the impression I get out of it is that as an employer I would not want my employees using AI to make it harder to see if they're doing their jobs.

It just seems like they're giving terrible examples of awful and irresponsible ways to use LLMs which will almost certainly lead to disappointment and disillusionment.

Why are advertisements for so bad?

Because people who make them know nothing about X, and their measure of success is pleasing and impressing their bosses who know ever less about X.

Even at best scenario, it is very difficult to judge what, if any effect does marketing/advertising has. Are our burgers selling because or despite our brilliant campaign?

And, with political/regime propaganda, these problems compound. This is why people wonder "This is so lame and cringe! Why would anyone commission such crap?" The answer is: To you, disilusioned zoomer/millenial/Xer it looks cringe, to boomer boss on the other side of the world who ordered it, it looks cool, based and revolutionary.

I've only seen the Sora Instagram ads, which I kind of like. Especially the one with the huge cat running through a house, destroying it, and then they replace the cat with other funny creatures.

I've also heard good things about Claude Code, but mostly from Substack and Youtube (from content creators, not pre-roll ads), and it does really seem to be the kind of thing were it's more effective to hype it that way than on an NFL ad.

My experience has been that AI is really good for personal life stuff, but I almost never use it at work. I'm sure that eventually firms will learn how to use it effectively*, but right now it's a helpful consumer product and less of a workplace tool.

*And I understand that it's basically there for coding already

And I understand that it's basically there for coding already

So far that hasn't been my experience. It gets uncannily close,and if you don't pay attention it's fine, but for any reasonably sized project the code tends to be rife with bugs. It's not just one kind of bug either - it varies from braindead stuff like not closing resources to subtle misunderstanding of APIs and business requirements.

The consistent thing I see from its biggest cheerleaders in my company is a kind of Gell-Mann amnesia, where they use it to do something they themselves don't know how to do, and are then blown away by the "quality" of the output. I end up getting assigned to fix it a few weeks later after the hype has died down.

And I understand that it's basically there for coding already

That is very much a subject of controversy in the industry. Some people say that is true, others (myself included based on my experience) say that it ultimately slows you down rather than speeds you up.

The only two that I can remember seeing were pretty reasonable. First for the new Google Pixel, where a woman points her phone at a florist's display and asks Gemini to pick her some affordable flowers that will match and be long lasting. The second one was for the new Samsung phone where a couple ask the AI to guide them around a museum they are visiting on their holiday.

And then there was the new iPhone advert where a sprinter runs through a brick wall to demonstrate how amazing vapour cooling is, which has nothing to do with AI but if I had to choose a phone based on nothing but those three adverts it wouldn't be the iPhone.

I recall one that featured an unprepared book club hostess "cunningly" asking an LLM just before the guests arrived to "suggest themes for discussion for the book Moby Dick".

What level of pretentious sub-midwit is that marketing towards?

George Costanza?

Actually perfect example. Exactly the kind of guy who would find himself hosting a classic book club, while being so generally ignorant that he couldn't fake up "Moby Dick is an allegory for obsession and revenge".

I was specifically referring to the book club episode where he tried to get out of reading Breakfast at Tiffany's by watching the movie.

lol what? It's faster to read it than watch the movie. Though I'm guessing the gag is they diverge quite a bit.

George, Paul is gay

It's like the marketing is meant to tell you: hit defect, everyone around you is about to become fake and gay, you might as well defect early and reap some measly social prestige benefits quickly before this kind of thing becomes so well known that all meaning is destroyed forever.

Holy cow THIS.

Cluely's very clueless ad was the Reductio ad absurdum of this particular message.

"Use AI to cut corners on tasks you are ostensibly supposed to enjoy in order to gain, I guess social credit among people who will somehow not mind that you used AI?

No, can you show me the AI directly enriching my life? Making me wealthier? Cutting out tasks that I don't enjoy and nobody else relies on me to perform?

Perhaps the actual goal of the ad is what you suggest. "All your friends are going to cheat with these tools, don't be the sucker who is left out!"

Look, I don't even mind the concept of using LLMs as the enhanced Google replacement. I just hate that 'hype' is built around use cases that are not actually improving my general day-to-day experience, and if EVERYONE ELSE stats using it that way, might degrade my experience!

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