AI is good for everyone, we promise! Trust us!

Meta’s new ad is a wet dream of Lisa Frank. There’s a rainbow, a butterfly, a bear hug, and a smash cut of three smiling children.

It’s a funny and eerie vision for AI. The ad’s narrator beckons us to call Meta’s staff “optimists” and “dreamers,” and says the company is “betting on talent,” which he tries to convey to the 8,000 employees Meta has just laid off. It promises that “the future is for everyone,” a surprisingly collectivist mission for a company that has recently hired several Donald Trump followers.

While Mr. Mehta increased his support for AI, attitudes among the American public worsened. According to the Pew Research Center, 40% of Americans predict that AI will have a negative impact on society. Only 16% said they would test positive. According to Gallup, nearly three-quarters of Americans oppose building data centers in their area. There have been numerous protests on TikTok, at City Hall, and outside Anthropic’s headquarters.

Like all AI labs, Meta clearly has something to prove. As executives at Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and others shift their tone from “AI could wipe out white-collar jobs” to “AI is the perfect boon for humanity,” industry powerhouses are on the defensive.

AI is great, they say. They say we lead it with joy and integrity. Trust us, they say.

AI is a unique marketing challenge. A few years ago, it was described as omnipotent, the technological change that would end all technological changes. Four months after ChatGPT’s launch, Sam Altman said it was “even bigger” than a technological revolution. Dario Amodei likened the LLM to “the land of data center geniuses.”

Then came a wave of productivity, with employees promising that their jobs would become much easier. If you believe Elon Musk, you may not need to work at all. And there’s always China, the looming threat that the Institute can cite to justify its breakneck speed.

China’s warnings won’t go away anytime soon. Sean Spicer has responded to the dizzying intensity of meta advertising with a stern warning. “America cannot afford to lose to China in the AI race,” the former White House press secretary and one-time “Dancing with the Stars” contestant wrote in a tweet citing the ad. I emailed Mr. Spicer and asked him what he thought about the ad and what he thought about public opinion. He ignored the question. “There is no second place in the race to dominate AI,” he wrote.

That’s what AI competition has long been about: dominance. These institutes are trying to gain an edge in pricing, talent, and nuance in the podcast space. Can they soften their image and regain trust?

Anthropic put the ad, which debuted during the World Cup two weeks ago, to its own barn burner. Some terrifying images were shown, including facial recognition tracking, a cemetery, and a house on fire, and some terrifying questions were asked. “Can we trust AI?” the narrator asks. “Who will step on the brakes if necessary?” The answer is “human!” we are here for you.

If this ad proves anything, it’s that the AI Institute recognizes how serious the concerns are.

This ad was widely skewered. Olivia Moore, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, wondered if Anthropic was “actively trying to alienate users.” Sam Altman wrote that he thought it was satire. Still, its structure was strikingly similar to meta-advertising in some ways: it stirred up criticism, then counteracted it.

Anthropic pats its detractors on the head. “We think things would be better if we all had a voice,” one of the voices in the ad says, suggesting that the public will have a say in Anthropic’s development. They are not. It’s not even a listed company yet. “There is hope for hard questions,” the startup’s message says, with no plans to answer them.

Mehta, on the other hand, gives the critics a job. “Some would have us believe that AI will make us less connected,” says the ad’s narrator. “Did you believe it?” – What is this, hypnosis? Meta, of course, is the savior against the faceless snake charmers. They are the optimists and shining knights of the AI race.

It’s not just the LLM giants. Notion inspired billboard criticism for its latest campaign, “Fear of AI.” The software company has set up a hotline for callers with “nagging fears that AI will do our jobs.”

Earning trust is difficult. It’s not clear which strategy (patting people on the head or talking back) will bring peace to those who criticize AI.

Some commenters liked the meta ads, calling them a solution to growing doomism. Some people called saying it was “disgusting” and “incredibly out of touch.” Many ridiculed the choice of score, David Bowie’s “Five Years,” an anthem about the end of the Earth.

David Livestein, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said AI labs need to address growing criticism. He said that while Anthropic’s ads were “brave,” he was less inspired by Meta’s ads. The message is, “We’re Facebook, so trust us.” Regarding criticism that Anthropic has raised potential harms and that the company itself is contributing to those potential harms, he said, “I don’t think it’s hypocritical. I think it’s being sensitive.”

When asked for comment, Meta representatives provided contact information for some advertising executives and said they had no financial ties to the company. One of them was Zach Bloom, president of creative agency Portal A, who said he found both ads “powerful and compelling.”

me too We asked Joonas Virtanen, founding designer at mini-app startup Wabi and who previously helped make Airbnb’s chatbot “more fun,” what he thought of the campaign. He said he was likely to believe in Anthropic’s approach, calling it an “honest” ad that “treats people like adults.” As for Meta, he exhaled a sweet sweetness. “It’s a bit of corporate nonsense,” he said. “They’re selling a rosy vision.”

Virtanen works in the technology industry. He is more likely to benefit from AI. Companies will need to bring in people outside the bubble, people who would rather live near a nuclear reactor than a data center. Convincing them will be even more difficult.

Indeed, Mr. Amodei is ratcheting down his warnings about the coming AI apocalypse. And indeed, Altman said he was “glad to be wrong” about AI destroying jobs. But the seeds have already been planted. If this ad proves anything, it’s that the AI Institute recognizes how serious the concerns are. It will take more than rainbows and “hard questions” to eradicate it.

henri chandonnay I’m a reporter on the business news desk. I mainly write about AI and technology culture.