We Need to Talk About That AI Coke Commercial

By now you’ve probably seen the Coca-Cola AI commercial. We’ll dive into its problems in this blog but ultimately, it does not look good. Ironically, a few months ago we posted a blog about some of the hidden downsides of using AI-generated videos. We talked about the impacts it’s having on our society, on our work-life, and human artists (especially since these systems are all trained on the theft of copyrighted work). We didn’t even have time to get to the environmental impacts it will have on our planet.

The impetus for that blog was the horrifying Toys ‘R’ Us AI commercial they put out and now we’ve seen an even bigger company do this. This isn’t to say every time a giant corporation employs theft to put out slop to the public that we’ll make a blog addressing it. It’s the last thing we want to talk about but when you see there’s a Coca-Cola AI commercial making the rounds, how can you not speak up. It’s time to stop using AI for art.

There is No Creation with AI

It’s important to lay the groundwork for what generative AI is actually doing. Or rather, what it’s not doing. It’s not “creating” anything. Everything that AI spits out, whether it’s a language generator, an image generator, a voice generator, or a video generator, no matter what tech giants and people who are too lazy to put in the effort to learn an artistic skill will tell you, AI can’t and doesn’t create anything. What it’s doing is pulling in stolen, often copyrighted material from all across the internet, funneling it through an algorithm and spitting out junk. They’re massive plagiarism and theft machines masking themselves as creative tools. And in a few years, who knows what the legal ramifications are going to be. We’re already seeing creatives trying to fight back against stolen likenesses.

So when we look at ads like the Coca-Cola AI commercial, those faces you’re seeing are most likely taken from photos and videos sucked in from around the internet. And instead of paying real artists, actors, and crew, they decided to have a machine dump it out. In fact, they’ve most likely needed other artists to go in and clean up certain aspects of it, artists who would be put to better use creating a real ad about magic than trying to clean up junk.

There is No Magic in the Coca-Cola AI Commercial

The biggest kick in the teeth for these ads (aside from theft and cutting out humans) is the message they’re supposedly trying to convey with them. That awful Toys ‘R’ Us commercial was supposed to be all about dreams and children using their imagination. But instead of letting artists use their imagination to create something special, they had a machine generate it and it looked terrible. The Coca-Cola AI commercial used the tagline of “Real Magic” and promoted the URL of CreateRealMagic.com. Ironic for a company, especially one that is so well known for its tradition of Christmas and holiday commercials, to push an idea of real magic but instead have a computer vomit out something so hollow that the internet actually came together about something. 

This whole thing is playing out like that episode of SpongeBob where he and King Neptune go head to head trying to make 1,000 Krabby Patties. King Neptune uses his power to form them all almost instantly while our hero takes his time and only gets one made. Only the King’s patties taste horrendously and SpongeBob’s tastes amazing. The people are speaking and they’re saying that patties like the Coca-Cola AI commercial should be spit out.

What Can You Do?

It seems like every single company is now using AI as a marketing buzzword. Heck, simple Google searches have been ruined by them forcing AI on us. Generative AI seems inevitable, right? The genie is out of the bottle, right? Well, sort of. Something we can all do is stop using AI for art. AI generated content has as much artistic value as the AIM chat bots we used to talk to or the JibJab videos we used to send our family except now tech bros have dressed them up a little nicer. Stop seeing what you’d look like as a pirate and helping train our future machine overlords. With the way creative tools are so much more accessible and YouTube tutorials are plentiful, you can even create your own drawing of yourself as a pirate. It takes a little practice but we believe in you!

Something we can definitely do is  stop saying that it’s inevitable and start showing value to talented artists and the work that they create. Go find your favorite artists online and tell them how much you love their work. Share their work in your social feeds. Even buy some if you can afford it. The more we prop up and support real artists, the more they’ll continue to be valued in the sea of AI trash.

Unfortunately, the box has been opened but if we can slow this down enough, we might be able to get the right regulations put in place to keep it from stealing work and destroying our environment. Besides, a business based on theft is not, and should not, be a business. Eventually this will come crashing down. Until then, we can all keep condemning and ragging on things like that Coca-Cola AI commercial as more corporations keep trying to polish AI turds.

Brewing Human-Made Art

Some of this blog might look like a smaller company going after a bigger company. Some of it may look like an old man yelling a cloud. But what this blog is really about is making sure that people keep valuing art that’s created by real humans, informed by real experiences. Art that’s always custom made for our clients by talented artists who can genuinely use their imagination and often put out videos that truly feel like real magic. So if you’d like to learn more about how we make that happen and the custom, human-crafted work we do for our clients, we’d love to hear from you. You can always reach out to us here.

Let’s Brew This!