We’ve been wrestling with the idea of AI for quite some time now. It started out pretty funny with images featuring people with 25 fingers, eyes pointing in different directions, and either hundreds of teeth or no teeth at all. But, at least for me, the thought has always been in the back of my mind that this stuff feels unnatural and as it continues to evolve, there could be some rather frightening ramifications. Well, folks – we’ve made it to a point where a completely AI commercial is actually a thing and it is passable as something that was made by a real human. Thanks for this one, Toys R Us.
Toys "R" Us releases the first OpenAI Sora generated brand commercial pic.twitter.com/qI5qlFLSJ4
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) June 25, 2024
Wow – they made something so creepy so successfully that we got people in the comments saying they’re glad Toys R Us went bankrupt. That’s how bad it is. Imagine being Toys R Us and hitting ’em with the misstep after misstep. What happened to this once great American institution? When I was a child, I used to tell people I wanted to be the manager at Toys R Us once I grew up. That’s how much I loved it. Now, the brand is just off the rails, hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
It’s hard to say what’s creepier with AI – the stuff that looks cartoonish or the stuff that looks like it could pass as real. The cartoonish stuff has a more unsettling nature to it in a visceral “what you can see” sense. But, the stuff that looks legit has me contemplating the very essence of human existence. I say “the future is now” in a lot of these columns, but this really feels like Toys R Us leading the way into the next generation of technology. That’s how I’m framing it anyway, for better or for worse.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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