“This was the first of its kind, but I have no doubt that it will be the last, at least for a very long time,” said the head of communications for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
An advertising campaign by Helsinki’s mass transit company Metropolitan Area Transport has raised eyebrows and drawn criticism for its use of animated images generated by AI.
Over the past few weeks, the ad has appeared on screens on buses and trams, as well as on social media.
It depicts a man-like figure with white hair and a beard wearing a bright yellow jacket, his expression turning into a smile.
The ad copy roughly translates to “No, baby boomers aren’t the only ones working for us.”
However, the image was generated by artificial intelligence, so neither the man nor his smile are actually real.
According to the company’s head of communications, Ula PaukThe company received 20 to 30 direct messages about the ad, which received considerable attention on social media.
“The most critical comments raised concerns that the use of artificial intelligence would result in job losses,” she explained.
Other complaints addressed issues of environmental responsibility and the fact that the ads did not include minorities.
According to Svenska Ale, which first reported on the issue, the company also used AI-generated materials in job ads last year, but at the time no one seemed to care.
This year, a graphic designer for an advertising campaign wanted to animate images. The intention, Pauk said, was to further exaggerate the humorous campaign.
So the company agreed with graphic designers, seeing an opportunity to develop their AI skills.
“Artificial intelligence is still a part of our lives in many ways,” Pauk explained.
But she never expected the decision to generate so much criticism.
hundreds of applicants
So far, the company has received more than 400 job applications for 23 vacant summer positions in the metropolitan area.
Many of the ad campaign’s critics assumed the company was using AI to save money and avoid hiring real graphic designers, but Pauk said that was not the case.
“On the contrary, we wanted to give external graphic designers the opportunity to experiment with AI,” she explained.
She was surprised by the amount of criticism this experiment generated, but realized that people now find AI annoying and the general consensus appears to be anti-AI.
She discussed the criticisms with her graphic designer and came to a conclusion with her team.
“This is the first time we’ve tried this, but I have no doubt it will be the last, at least for a very long time,” Pauk said.
Other concerns
Other critics of the campaign have environmental concerns, accusing the company of not considering how its use of AI could negatively impact climate change.
Artificial intelligence requires enormous amounts of computer processing, work that is primarily done in huge data centers, and requires large amounts of energy.
But on this point, Mr. Pauk disagreed.
“This was the first AI experiment using video, so it’s hard to believe that this one campaign could have caused more damage to the climate. Most of us are using AI in some way anyway,” she said.
But Pauk said, at least so far, no one has complained about the campaign’s “boomer” jabs, which could be perceived as discriminating against older workers.
Svenska Ehr suggested to Pauk that the ad could suggest that the company doesn’t value older employees as much as younger employees.
“That’s not true. Most of our employees are in that age group and they are valuable to us. Without our baby boomers, we would not be able to function,” Pauk said.
She says the whole idea behind the recruitment campaign was to brighten the company’s image, which could be perceived as a dull, engineer-focused workplace.
