Posted in: Opinion, streaming, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: ai, apple, artificial intelligence, opinion, sansung

Samsung Tried to "Crush" Apple Over Ad But Let Its AI Show (VIDEO)

Samsung came THIS CLOSE to crushing Apple over its "Crush" ad, claiming "it would never crush creativity." And then it let its AI show...

We were wondering when someone was going to take a shot at Apple over the commercial for its new iPad Pro. To the tune of Sonny and Cher's "All I Ever Need Is You," the promo "Crush" featured a large display of televisions, musical instruments, books, video game consoles, and a whole lot more creative things being slowly crushed under a large hydraulic press. The fact that it takes its time – taking up over 50 seconds of the 1:08 ad – makes it all that much more disturbing. From there, the press rises to reveal that from that destruction comes – a new (and really thin) iPad Pro.

We're guessing that the ad was supposed to send the message that the iPad Pro packs a lot of creative artistry into such a small package. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote, "Just imagine all the things it'll be used to create." But in an age when artificial intelligence has only fueled the justified fears that the creative community has about the human experience being replaced by machines, we're still not sure how anyone on Apple's side couldn't have seen the backlash coming. While the Apple CEO was thinking in tech terms, a lot of folks who use the very things that were destroyed saw the commercial as a cynical metaphor for efforts to "automate art" – devaluing the importance of the artist in that process.

Well, Samsung clearly smelled blood in the water because the company put out a clip for its Galaxy Tab S9 series depicting a woman walking through a room that looks very similar to how the Apple room looked at the end of "Crush." The woman picks up a guitar that survived the destruction and begins to play – using her Galaxy Tab S9 to display her music as the words "Creativity cannot be crushed." Pretty effective, right? Even the tweet/x proudly proclaimed, "We would never crush creativity. #UnCrush." But just when you think that Samsung has taken the high ground and delivered an impactful PR  blow, Samsung proudly promoted that the Galaxy Tab S9 series comes with "Galaxy AI." Needless to say, it didn't take long for the irony of a company promoting AI to lecture another company about crushing creativity to rise to the surface and make its way around social media.

"Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it's incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world," Tor Myhren, Apple VP of marketing communications, shared in a statement shortly after the ad debuted and the backlash began. "Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we're sorry." Though the ad is still online (you can check it out above), Apple has apparently canceled plans to air "Crush!" on television.

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