it’s finally happened the top to bottom AI commercial coming to you from McDonald’s Japan I’m Professor Einstein I’m a former TV and advertising executive turned marketing critic take a look at the spot and we’ll talk about it on the other side this commercial is written by AI the person in there is not really a person it’s a virtual personality so this is computer generated soup to nuts as a piece of advertising I I think it’s I think it’s fine particularly for the target market if I look at it more critically in terms of labor in terms of creativity in terms of what this means more long term I have real issues with this we’re talking about taking people out of the equation and that might be okay for certain brands like McDonald’s it’s not something you spend a lot of time thinking about it’s probably okay for things like Coca Cola and Pepsi they want to look like they’re on the cutting edge they’re targeting young people all of that works but it’s not going to work for everything there’s the issue of perpetuating the same ideas over and over again which is the only thing computer can do it can’t come up with something new and marketing in and of itself is about finding the new is about finding new and interesting ways to appeal to people so I wonder if this is going to die of its own weight anyway but the labor issue taking people out of the equation this has been one of the biggest fears around AI from the beginning and now we’re already seeing it starting to happen