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Gross Apple Marketing

jonathanbuys.com

251–260 of 270 posts

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#251
"In one a schlub writes an email to his boss and uses AI to make it sound ‘more professional’, in another a young woman uses it to lie about remembering an acquaintance’s name. In another the same young woman again uses it to lie about reading an email from a college, to her face, while she’s sitting with her. In yet another, linked to recently by Scott McNulty, a woman uses AI to lie to her husband about getting him something for his birthday."

My dude. These ads were supposed to be funny. Can apple not joke? When did we all get so serious?

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm, personally not a fan of the current generation or implementation of AI and do not want to use it. Why not? It gives vastly better than human performance across a wide range of problems. Just this morning I asked Chat GPT to find me the smallest set of positive integers whose median is 2 and whose average is 3.75, and it just spit out the correct answer instantly. That would have been an enormous pain in the as…

Because, ultimately, I'd like to continue to think and solve on my own. If I want to leverage a chat model, which I do, I can do that very easily on my own hardware. I don't want it so far shoved down my phones innards that I'm paying for hardware that is useless outside that use case. Imagine the next 30 years when the majority of the population has no clue on how to function without cloud connected models answering…

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Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Are people who use spell checkers also lying when the computer helps them not sound like an illiterate 5th grader? What about Word’s pre-AI grammar correction? Further, it’s pretty clear from the watching the commercial that the boss is not fooled by this. The humor of the commercial is supposed to derive from the absolute contrast between the well established and known behavior of the employee and the cont…

I think this is one of those things where the root cause is a social problem rather than a technical one, and trying to use technical solutions is somewhat helpful at best and masking huge issues at worst. If people can't write professionally, then the proper solution is better education, perhaps some education through onboarding in the job, and/or the boss being more flexible when reading. At least the common usage…

I think there is only deception if you believe the original words written in the original tone was the intended message (or I suppose if the intent of the communication is to demonstrate your personal ability to write in a given style). If a coworker does something extremely stupid that harms our project and I sit down at my desk and write an angry email full of invective and spit and fury, save it in my drafts and go for a walk, then come back and rewrite the email to be constructive and professional, have I been deceptive? When I started the email I certainly intended to write the things I wrote in that first draft. But sending that would have been counter productive.

I might even still think my co-worker is a flaming moron who shouldn't be allowed out of the house unsupervised. But if I know that sending that in an email isn't going to solve anything and just make things worse, am I being deceptive if I remove that sentence from the email?

Or consider an alternative scenario. I attended a conference where a speaker made a reference to the Alamo. The speaker was older, and the reference would have been the same sort of "make a stand" reference any number of speakers would have made over and over in the 90's. But after their talk, I was talking with some younger attendees, folks born after the turn of the millennium. Among them, the speaker's metaphor was a hot topic. Specifically the "yikes" factor of referencing the Alamo in any way that in any way implied the defenders should have been looked up to. The speaker's intended message was lost in the specific details of their chosen metaphor because the words which they absolutely intended to speak did not hold the same meaning for the audience to which they were spoken. If some hypothetical AI speech editor existed where you could punch in the age range of your intended audience and it would edit out metaphors and references that would land wrong with the audience, is that being deceptive or is that good editing and "reading the room"?

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “I’m sorry for the long letter, I didn’t have time for a shorter one.” With Apple Intelligence, now you do.

Why would I take the time to read a letter you couldn't be bothered to take the time to write?

Silly! You’re meant to have your AI read it and summarize it for you, of course!

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#255
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mostly just a problem of not having good reasons I disagree, I think this is bad ethics, and bad marketing people, working for Apple...what other explanation - same people crushed musical instruments and books, human craft-work -- using a hydraulic press, in a recent Apple advert. Advertising certainly can show outrageous ways to behave, and it's "okay". Calling someone and simply shouting WAZZZAAAAAAP! into the ce…

The signaling value of knowing how to writey words good is dead. More dead even than a coffin-nail, and assuredly that of a door (thanks, Dickens). Signaling through speaking will become even more important. Get thy children to debate club, seminar-based classes (hope you're rich!), theater, and hell, I dunno, ToastMasters Junior or whatever.

You know they can use those AI generated words to create an outline of talking points right?

That too is also going to be dead if we follow that logic.

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#256
post #155

The consumer use cases of "AI" right now are mostly about cheating at work that one is still really supposed to do themselves. Maybe the ad people tried to come up with relatively palatable ones? Note that no one is cheating on their school homework, which is a huge consumer use case category. And no creative work was detectably plagiarized (art, code). Though they still did do employment slacking/incompetence gainin…

If you get work done while using AI you clearly aren’t cheating, that’s what they pay you for, not for the drudgery it involves. If my employee can be more productive with AI so be it.

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#257
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mostly just a problem of not having good reasons I disagree, I think this is bad ethics, and bad marketing people, working for Apple...what other explanation - same people crushed musical instruments and books, human craft-work -- using a hydraulic press, in a recent Apple advert. Advertising certainly can show outrageous ways to behave, and it's "okay". Calling someone and simply shouting WAZZZAAAAAAP! into the ce…

It's not a good set of ads, granted. But millions of people have been using Grammarly, et al. for this for years. Managers have actually paid to deploy tools like this to their employees. The ship you're talking about has already sailed.

yeah, that is super intersting for sure.

it is a crippling of language.

the art of language ironically injured by automation.

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#258
post #10

I was already bothered by the Apple Watch marketing. The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too. The messaging that AI is for lying is another big yikes. Apple marketing department has lost the magic.

As someone whose watch called 911 for me when I was in an accident, and who got a call when my mother fell, fear or not there are real, tangible benefits that probably can't be overstated.

I’m not saying the feature is bad. I’m saying the advertising shouldn’t be fear-inducing, it should be inspiring.

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#259
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The signaling value of knowing how to writey words good is dead. More dead even than a coffin-nail, and assuredly that of a door (thanks, Dickens). Signaling through speaking will become even more important. Get thy children to debate club, seminar-based classes (hope you're rich!), theater, and hell, I dunno, ToastMasters Junior or whatever.

You know they can use those AI generated words to create an outline of talking points right? That too is also going to be dead if we follow that logic.

Talking points only go so far in conversation or argument. Hell, even in a presentation or speech.

Re: Gross Apple Marketing

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does the Ubuntu ad say to the user? How does it capture someone’s attention? Exactly. Contrary to the article, it doesn't tell a story at all. It's just some slick-ish graphics with a few words overlayed on top. They're nice words. But they didn't really embrace "show, don't tell".

i have no idea what the ubuntu ad is trying to tell me, but OPs points on the Apple ads still seem pretty relevant.

The Ubuntu ad is mostly about emotions.

The main message is `sudo apt install btop`. But most people who use Linux already have this htop replacement installed.

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