In the 90s I remember billboards on US-101 for VHDL something or the other. At least people have heard of AI. But yes, these low-effort and occasionally creepy billboards are nowhere near as entertaining as the old Lombardi Sports ads ("The Great Outdoors. Connecting us to our heritage. Like the Donner Party").
The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
51–60 of 71 posts
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#52[deleted]
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#53I think we should ban all billboards. We deserve as a species to have spaces where we are not being advertised to.
The 280 freeway on the Peninsula in the Bay Area has banned billboards, and it is quite a pleasant drive.
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#54"Killing SF" is overly dramatic, and others have noted that the phenomenon observed here is not unique to AI, or SF. But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you. It's a dumb example, but in Pittsburgh the football stadium was renamed from Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium. Of course, "Three Rivers Stadium", the name of the previous building, was best. It's not a name that tri…
"But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you."
The vast majority of advertising isn't for any specific individual. I've no interest in perfumes, fashion, electric cars or jewellery that feature on boards nearby and I've no idea who the celebrity endorsers are, but why should I care?
But many modern people have a compulsion that they need to be involved in everything, all the time, and anything they don't understand is either mocked or protested. It's a form of entitled self-importance, but what's the cause?
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#55If you drive through Las Vegas, all the billboards are about casinos. If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop. Advertisers target the people likely to see the ad and spend money on the topic. Billboards are extremely geographically restricted, so local interest dominates. This isn't really news. And yes, they are annoying.
> If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop.
Have you ever driven through farm country? I do fairly regularly (on an interstate). There's like one billboard for a (cattle) vet on my route. Most ads are for restaurants, healthcare, and the regular stuff.
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#56If you drive through Las Vegas, all the billboards are about casinos. If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop. Advertisers target the people likely to see the ad and spend money on the topic. Billboards are extremely geographically restricted, so local interest dominates. This isn't really news. And yes, they are annoying.
> If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop. Have you ever driven through farm country? I do fairly regularly (on an interstate). There's like one billboard for a (cattle) vet on my route. Most ads are for restaurants, healthcare, and the regular stuff.
All the time. The billboards are very often about fertilizer, tractors, and shipping.
And if that is the argument, there are plenty of local business billboards in the Bay Area as well.
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#57"Killing SF" is overly dramatic, and others have noted that the phenomenon observed here is not unique to AI, or SF. But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you. It's a dumb example, but in Pittsburgh the football stadium was renamed from Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium. Of course, "Three Rivers Stadium", the name of the previous building, was best. It's not a name that tri…
Heinz just sells diabetes & fatty liver disease and packages it as a staple of american cuisine.
What did the prepared mustard ever do to you?
You're far, far more likely to get fatty liver disease from products sold by companies like Diageo and Bacardi.
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop. Have you ever driven through farm country? I do fairly regularly (on an interstate). There's like one billboard for a (cattle) vet on my route. Most ads are for restaurants, healthcare, and the regular stuff.
All the time. The billboards are very often about fertilizer, tractors, and shipping. And if that is the argument, there are plenty of local business billboards in the Bay Area as well.
> And if that is the argument, there are plenty of local business billboards in the Bay Area as well.
I don't have an argument, it's just what you describe doesn't match my experience.
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#59SF is always on the brink of death from one thing or another. Has to be the most melodramatic populace in America. I’ve lived here for 13 years, my wife for 20. It’s the same as always. We saw a Sees Candies : No AI needed billboard yesterday. Thought that was funny.
You might like this prank billboard that’s up: https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/prank-san-francisc...
Haha. That’s funny. I tell my friends that perhaps instead of ruining my daughter’s name (Astra) as a GPT model name they could have picked ChatJupiter since it sounds like GPT. No one has laughed yet but maybe if I keep trying they will.
There’s another one out there that goes AI Dread? Call 1-800-HELP-MEE or something like that. Pity I was driving. Would have liked to have seen what that was.
Re: The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
#60"Killing SF" is overly dramatic, and others have noted that the phenomenon observed here is not unique to AI, or SF. But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you. It's a dumb example, but in Pittsburgh the football stadium was renamed from Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium. Of course, "Three Rivers Stadium", the name of the previous building, was best. It's not a name that tri…
"But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you." The vast majority of advertising isn't for any specific individual. I've no interest in perfumes, fashion, electric cars or jewellery that feature on boards nearby and I've no idea who the celebrity endorsers are, but why should I care? But many modern people have a compulsion that they need to be involved in everything, all th…
Hmm, I think you're projecting something different onto me.
When I was typing my post I thought about billboards for divorce attorneys: I am happily married so those billboards aren't for me, but this fact alone wasn't enough to alter the idea behind my post. And I guess I should also note that I did not demand that all billboards cater exclusively to my interests, that is obviously unworkable nonsense.
So let me try to refine:
Public advertising is...public. "of or concerning the people as a whole"; "exposed to general view", to pick two dictionary definitions. Billboards and stadiums occupy public spaces, places you walk or drive by all the time, so one could reasonably intuit that they should be representative of the people who inhabit those spaces.
Analogies don't usually help, but let me try: If a city had 90% of its inhabitants speaking German, you would expect most of the signage and advertising to be in German. An Italian speaker would arrive in the city and just feel that the place was...different, not for them. (It would not be "entitled self-importance" to say so.)
If a city was 90% German speakers, 10% French speakers, and the signage and advertising was all in French - what would the visiting Italian speaker make of that? Would a group of Germans in town rightly be accused of "entitled self-importance" for asking that the world around them is accessible?