“Most terrible” works well for McD
It’s ironic that for all the broken record whining about “attacks on Christmas”, the first legitimate one I’ve seen is from their largest multinational corporation.
They seem to be sending the message that holiday cheer and time with the family is all overrated bullshit and you should just stay home and stuff your face with mcdonald’s instead. Honestly surprised that the AI is people’s biggest concern here instead of the soulless corpo propaganda.
Oh that’s a devastating point, didn’t consider the War on Christmas angle. I’d like to give people the benefit of the doubt in that they knew something was fundamentally wrong here, and AI generated happened to be an easy superficial scapegoat. Very insightful comment on the intent behind the prompt that generated this.
“This wasn’t an AI trick,” she said. “It was a film.”
Nah. It really was an AI trick.
Not a trick, actually. The trick was poisoning the water of some community, and making their utilities go up for this bullshit.
Gross, out of all the options to “hide out” in MD would be my last choice. It’s loud, smelly, sticky, and their bathrooms are dirty. That’s a bad ad. Way to really miss your target audience mark.
I live in Japan and I actually kinda miss going there because it’s pretty good here. Fast, cheap, friendly service, pretty clean and has cool happy meals for my kids. Unfortunately, my family has been boycotting US companies.
I used to watch a lot of travel streams and it’s amazing how much nicer the American chains are in other countries lol.
its partially because the american pallete keeps going back to whats recognizable and what theyre used to, more than being adventurous and trying new things. because of that, fast food establishments keep pushing to simplify menus, rather than expand it. (both to cut down prep time and because thats where the money is). Id reckon a lot of it is fueled by nostalgia and brand loyalty. to take a generalized example that can partially be global, see opinions on coke vs coke competitors.
Well the food is just one piece of it though, the restaurants in general are much nicer, cleaner, better layout, more unique features, friendlier staff… but probably because their media hasn’t demonized fast food work as for high schoolers and losers, and as such, they are paid well and actually care about their jobs.
Your first mistake was watching streams.
It definitely wasn’t my first mistake, but yes, and an expensive one.
KFC in South Korea was the worst KFC I’ve had in my life… but it wasn’t the worst experience.
Ah lol, well Korean fried chicken is legendary, so that’s not surprising that KFC is not so good/popular there.
I see that your AI enabled smart phone accidentally autocorrected fortunately, to unfortunately. Let the US crumble and enjoy the show.
Exactly. We Jews know that the place to hide out on Christmas is a Chinese restaurant.
That’s the home base where you guys control everything?
It’s where they hide the space laser control panel.
The launch code is “Kung pao chicken“
As a Jew, can’t you just hide out at home?
On Christmas, I like to treat myself to a delicious, succulent Chinese meal
Seven weeks just for slop that didn’t convert a single customer.
Even if wasn’t AI it was still a shitty ad for expensive, mediocre food.
That’s what I find crazy. People used to eat there all the time because it was so cheap. These days you’ll be lucky to find anything under $5 and most combos cost upwards of $15+. All my coworkers used to stop there for lunch between job sites but now they all just bring shit from home. If you are still eating there at this point my guess is you just like mediocre food. If beef prices weren’t so messed up right now I’d say it’d be cheaper just to make it at home.
If beef prices weren’t so messed up right now I’d say it’d be cheaper just to make it at home.
It IS cheaper to make at home, and always has been. Even during the time McDonald’s was still affordable it was still more expensive than cooking it yourself
If you want cheap food, Costco food court is where it’s at. 15 bucks (if that) for a large meal, a drink, and some kind of dessert.
You have to be a member though. Ask me how I know :p
Not for the food court.
My local one requires ordering by kiosk, which requires swiping your membership card to start the order. Yes, you can probably ask the person next to you to swipe for you.
It must vary by location because my local one has all these signs saying Beginning <date in the past> you must be a costco member to eat at the food court.
some kind of dessert.
stop the hard sell buddy.
Yeah but where are you going to PARK? I don’t know about you, but the Costco in my city is a NIGHTMARE to visit.
Probably get lunch and dinner for $15 at Costco Food Court. You would have more of an issue finding a place to sit and eat.
most people there are likely spending alot more shopping, the food court is just marketing, and it works.
Jeez, you eat ten $1.50 hotdog and soda combos in one sitting?!
Lol.
Their other food is more expensive but it’s still quite cheap.
One day, when I’m feeling particularly rich, I might try a chicken bake or even a turkey sandwich. But as it stands, the $1.50 hotdog is the only thing there I consider relevant.
(Okay, okay… I begrudgingly buy pizza slices for my fancy-pants family members who turn their noses up at Costco’s awesome hotdogs. But still…!)
too bad they got rid of the combo pizza.
And the polish sausage, and the sauerkraut topping for the hot dog.
Prices are high everywhere, so while it’s way more expensive than it was, McDonald’s is still pretty much the cheapest option.
A large value meal costs ~$9, and there is a 20% discount for using the app at $15, so if 2 people go or you bring some home it’s ~$7. Every $60 you spend nets you free happy meal too.
Meanwhile a local place charges $20 for a burger and fries, no drink, before tip. The grocery store is up to $8.99 a pound for hamburger meat, so while it is still cheaper to make it yourself, by the time you include cooking ingredients it’s pretty comparable.
The grocery store is up to $8.99 a pound for hamburger meat
And given that Bigmac patties have been reduced to 45 grams that single pound of meat is enough for 10
And the salt used to flavor them is still so cheap it’s essentially negligible.
they shrinkflationed thier food, and they never went back.
iirc from their last financials hearings, revenue from lower class orders have dropped significantly, however thr median buyer group has started to spend more to offset those losses. mcdonalds I think had 2% growth suprisingly while the rest of the industry floundered.
basically it’s people who wont pick a better place to get food proping mcdonalds
There’s a lot of stupid people in the world. When I can get a more filling meal at a sit down local restaurant for the same price, why would I go anywhere near McDonald’s? Because people are stupid. And we can all picture people who frequent McDonald’s, they’re the same people you picture when picturing punisher logos and 2a imagery.
If you use the app, you can get a large Ice Tea and a Large Fries for $2.20 including tax. That’s all I ever get there, once a month or so. They gotta be losing money on that deal. I’m slowly putting them out of business. You’re welcome.
Those apps make money off of your data, not their food.
I read that the upper/middle class has started going to fast food more because they can’t afford the lunches/dinners they used to get.
Yeah their sales are being buoyed by six-figure income folks, who now see it as a value to eat there.
The first two paragraphs of the article confirm it’s AI generated. The only one denying it is the ad agency.
Yeah I heard a guy use McDonald’s in an illustration the other day, how people see the golden arches and everyone recognizes it, knows what to expect. The same food all over the country, similar food around the world. And it’s fast and cheap.
And I’m like… Right… Maybe once upon a time…
For fuck’s sake people…
Here’s the ad: https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/34728882/its-the-most-terrible-time-of-the-year/mcdonalds
There’s definitely some AI in it, and it’s definitely shit.
Some AI? It’s all AI!
Holy shit that whole thing was off-putting even without considering where it came from.
Yeah, pretty much all of that hit my uncanny valley instincts. It was definitely, significantly edited after generation, but the clips themselves were…not right.
Most definitely AI.
The ad was a weird take. I think it’s a mixture of the message and the uncanny Ai. Even if the ad wasn’t Ai, it’d be a really odd ad.
Seems I suck at spotting ai in this clip. The cat one looked off and maybe the dude hanging down from the fairy lights but honestly I would have assumed it was all filmed or animated for the cookies.
This is a wild place. Share you experience and get more downvotes than upvotes. Not that votes matter it’s just an odd thing to do. Sorry I can’t see things like y’all.
AI makes all animals more fluffy and cutesy than they are in real life. My mom keeps trying to show me “real” videos that are funny or cute and it just makes me want to put her in a home. She’s also a shit human outside of that, so don’t judge me for wanting to put her in a home for not recognizing AI.
Those tips will help me in the future. I would like to say I’m not an idiot and maybe it’s how I see things vs others. Something I find interesting anyway, like I can’t visualise anything in my minds eye and find it shocking people can picture say a red apple.
I did judge you for you mum comment, but if she’s a horrible person perhaps make some distance between you two if possible. I’ve come to realise most my family have horrible views and it sucks.
It does suck. Realizing that as a child she indoctrinated me to the right wing. Manipulated me into seeing the world as she does. It took me far longer than I’d care to admit to see what happened and realize that those ideas are sick and horrifying. And now seeing how she’s so easily tricked by AI, it starts to make sense. She’s just stupid and easily tricked into believing falsehoods.
As someone with a shitty past but I would say shittier due to parents being shit rather than hostile like yours seem.
I’m come to accept that my parents made mistake and as the eldest those mistakes have shaped who I am, the good and the awful lot of bad. And I realise that they did the best they could as they came from shitty backgrounds too and didn’t have the ability to break the cycle. I decided not to have kids as I am breaking that cycle.
I guess I’m saying perhaps you mom went through a similar background and although it doesn’t excuse it, it explains it more for your peace of mind than hers though.
Edit: for context. I saw my dad beat my mum for years. When that stopped I saw my mum beat my dad and worse bully him. Other things like she had me kick down doors looking for my dad and generally was a warzone we grew up in.
That sounds familiar. After coming to some realizations on my own, I now know my dad had ADHD like me and my son, as did my grandpa. At that time ADHD wasn’t really understood so I could understand how a relationship within that context would be difficult. My own relationships have struggled for the same reasons because despite my elementary teachers suggesting I get tested, she refused. 40 years of not knowing what was wrong with me, fucked me up bad, all because she’d be embarrassed of having the kid with a disorder. My mother, however doesn’t have the excuse of mental health, she’s just flat out evil. Everything that ever went wrong was someone else’s fault, usually mine, because I was there. Nobody else was, because she didn’t have any close friends, for a reason.
I love my son more than anything, and it hurts knowing what’s in store for his future but at least he’s got some help in understanding his condition, and meds and therapy for it. But the future is only going to get worse. And that potentially civilization ending sun spot is the best I can hope for, to at least level the playing field for him. Otherwise his future is just unbridled capitalism and fascism. It hurts like a MFer to know that.
Edit: that last part is basically saying “you’re lucky you don’t have kids, they’re great, but it hurts”
The tree exploded weird, the mixer was vibrating weird, the guy falling on the ice flopped weird, I could go on. It was weird after weird clips stacked on each other
This is the thing though, some people just don’t see that shit. Every single clip looked so unnatural and AI slop to me, real Black Hole Sun vibes, but some people are literally not seeing the dogshit jank we see. I suspect this explains some of why corpos think it’s amazing if they can’t see the abhorrence.
I watched it twice and I couldn’t really tell. It’s switching between scenes so fast I can’t really focus on any part. I am on a phone too, so it’s small.
That’s crazy to me. I’m on a phone too, and it’s… Just garbage content.
Technologically speaking it’s amazing! Very close to real. If it was on in the background at a bar or something I probably wouldn’t clock it.
But watching it? With my eyes? Immediately obvious.
I wonder why some people can’t see it? Do you notice other AI stuff? Like even a lot of animated pictures and memes are AI now, as I scroll by I’m like yep, there’s more. And I’m sure I’m not seeing it all, and I’m getting fooled by some of it, but all the time I’m seeing it.
Do you have a technical background? An artistic one?
I just like tech, never been one for art.
20 years ago people would have shit themselves seeing this and hearing that it was all created entirely by computers. But the reality is in the implications. Sure that’s kinda/sorta impressive that AI can do that much now, but the implications that some can’t tell the difference anymore is absolutely horrifying. Trump can post a video of him urinating on a 40’ tall pile of brown corpses and some will see it as AI slop, and some will take it as real, and cheer it on. The implication is that people can now do and say horrible things and claim that the evidence is AI, or the reverse, that people can make it look like someone did something horrible and people will believe it. Give it another 5-10 years and it’ll be even harder to tell. This shit is society-ending levels of bad.
Switching really quickly is one sign that it’s AI content because it’s still really bad at keeping context. AI is good enough at generating a scene where “a certain thing happens,” but really can’t create a scene where “a certain thing happens and as a result this happens.” It can’t tell a story.
Pass
Maybe it’s because of the tiny video on my phone, and that it was on mute, but I don’t really see what the problem is. It looks like any other advertisement. It does not make me want to go to McDonald’s any more than I already did not.
I assume this is all anti-ai pushback.
I assume this is all anti-ai pushback.
Well, yeah, but it’s also crap visually probably because it is AI. The pacing, the creepy textures and unnatural movement and physics put the whole thing in the uncanny valley.
That is pretty standard pacing. Annoying, but standard. I don’t know what physics you were talking about. The cat and the tree? That would clearly be CG if not AI.
Again, I looked at it on a tiny screen.
Maybe if I was the kind of person who watched McDonald’s commercials on a large screen and then got upset when I thought some of it might be AI, and then went frame by frame pointing out how bad I thought it was. Then went to social media to complain.
The cat and the tree is janky as fuck (it would start off slower and gain speed). The mixer exploding looks like nothing real, and produced a gigantic splat that only went on the guy’s face, not his jumper, and he reacts before it does so (whilst the woman doesn’t react at all). The exploding tree looked like nothing again, then the snow fell off him weirdly as he slid to a stop. When the tree lights break, the old man reacts with a horror-show unchanging wide-open mouth before anything happens, then the sparks appear before the illumination on the presents does. The falling man’s limbs all turn to jelly after he does so. The couple eating appear in front of the rain-streaked window.
Yeah but who the fuck cares, it’s a stupid commercial? I guarantee that no one outside of the “I hate AI“ crowd noticed anything. In fact, I don’t think anybody noticed the commercial even if they stared right at it.
I’m sure it’s mostly anti ai backlash, but people do still care about the quality of things they see even if they’re adverts.
This is better than most of the ads I’ve seen in the last decade…
Definitely disagree there.
Lemmy will downvote you for it because they’re all luddites, but I think you’re right. Even the worst parts just look like bad special effects/cgi more than anything.
It’s not like we look to adverts for their creativity.
I like the part with the cat.
Maybe you don’t
Now I’m wondering if their meat is real. Time for me to switch to “Amburgers and Woot Beer” (A&W).
The ad was openly marketed as being created with AI. So, for all those folks who say they “just want AI content to be labelled as such”, this is a major reason why there are so many people who refuse to do that. They know it doesn’t help.
Slop is slop. It’s just nice to have disclosure, too.
Sure, but that disclosure is simply painting a target on themselves. If they’re going to be pilloried whether they do it or not then why draw attention? Keeping it unlabelled at least allows for the chance that nobody will notice.
Whilst slop is slop, and should be pilloried as such, cheap, lazy “AI” slop shoild be labeled to indicate that even less attention was paid than usual, and that it was created from stolen assets. This last part is probably the most important part.
And illustrates exactly the point I’m making. If people are going to hate it purely because it’s AI, regardless of whether it’s labelled or not, then there’s every incentive there to simply not label it. It’s counterproductive.
If it has disclosure i avoid it and maybe the brand but i give them bonus points and if its really just something like a placeholder by a single dev/indie then i am able to acrept it somewhat
But if they dont disclose it and notice it myself: its a big ewwww and that nasty ewwww will stick
I hope at least that there are enough of the me type that disclosure is productive
Disclosure could also be a proartive measure to keep “the loud haters” away that try to get others to boycott with them (because i at least would fight the eww ones first)
But of course it can be profitable for companies to get away with undisclosed ai as it may reduce tthe cost and production speed (i think i read that some ai ad needed more human work & time)
Whilst I see your point from the advertisers perspective, ie, misleading the consumer can be profitable, it also makes it all the more necessary for advertisers to be forced, ideally through legislative means, to disclose asset theft. That way they’re all on a level playing field, and are disuaded from lieing about it.
That fact that most “AI” output is garbage is not directly relevant, but the sourcing of the training data and lack of human oversight are.
First it would need to be established that generative AI inherently involves “asset theft”, which so far has not been the case in the various lawsuits that have reached trial.
Looking at a timeline of cases against various AI companies suggests that’s not quite the case. This page had a good overview, showing how cases are being resolved. Some of the recent notable outcomes involve the German courts finding OpenAI violated copyright laws, OpenAI being forced to reveal internal communications about trying to hide a massive dataset of pirated books, and a class action suceeding against Anthropic, but there’s a bunch more.
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Slapping a disclosure doesn’t give you a get out of jail free card if you oppose AI ads in general. The argument of “well now they just won’t tell you” rings a bit hollow.
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AI or not the ad in question was dogshit.
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I was talking to my gf the other day (yes, she’s real) who has a graphic design degree and we both theorized that these companies who use AI video generation still need a graphics design expert in hand so that, that expert can point out the flaws and have them fixed before they start airing the commercials. I’m thinking of that Coca Cola winter truck commercial where the truck changes its appearance in every shot. These companies really think we are that dumb…
No, they just don’t care and hope people don’t care enough to make it a big deal
I think if the last place I could go for comfort was McDonalds I would blow my fucking brains out.
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Sadly you’re right. Bad publicity is still publicity
Well, if it ain’t the ol’ Reverse Barbara Streisand Effect Method…
This does not make me want mcd’s.
yeah this doesn’t effect me at all. there are enough other reasons not to buy it
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it’s shit now
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it’s expensive now
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service sucks now
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it’s american
It’s shit NOW? it’s always been shit.
nah like eight years ago a jr chicken was tasty and a decent price. good value.
Just because it tasted good to you doesn’t mean it was actually good food. Most parmesan cheese in the US is largely wood pulp. Yum right?
I didn’t say it was good, and definitely didn’t say that it was healthy or quality. only that it was good value, and obviously in the context of fast food which is inherently neither healthy nor quality and so that does not need to be stated
What is a good value for a 5 gallon bucket of shit? Value is a grade of price AND quality.
Most pre grated shelf stable Parmesan cheese is cellulose.
We do get real cheese here.
Right, the “Shakey cheese” as my kid calls it.
Shit, there are at least 3 mcds within a few miles from my house, and I manage to just not eat there.
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A hallmark of this era. Why please those you serve when you can instead infuriate them with a fraction of the effort and still turn a profit?
Maccas getting their grubby fingers in the rage economy 😒
Rage economy :(
Angry Meal™️
I still haven’t, nor the coke one.
You’re in a thread about McDonalds, so they get the benefit of you seeing the ad without paying for the extra impression.
Bad press for AI is good even if McDonald’s gets some sort boost from the controversy (I don’t think they will).
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I pretty sure McDonald’s made the commercial purely for the “we used AI” stock market bump. It will have no effect on their sales and they know it and here’s why:
There’s hardly any actual food in the commercial. (Probably because the AI refused to make anything that wasn’t disgusting and nauseating. It’s called “AI slop” for a good reason.). The tried and true method of fast food ads is close ups of slow motion food porn.
Plus no one can afford to eat fast food anymore. The one nearest to me has like two people working in it and is a ghost town. 5 years ago it was fully staffed, 24/7 operating hours and you had to wait in line no matter what time it was. It was always crowded.
I think this represents a shift away from advertising to customers towards advertising to the stock market. Theoretically they could stop selling food and just use their IP as a speculation asset. The stock market is broken and you even don’t need to make a profit to keep your share price high. A literal infinite money glitch. Who knows what will happen when that comes crashing down but they don’t seem too worried about it. I’m worried though.
Use generative ai on your brand once and you will never get rid of the stink.
Short memories
For some anyway.
On the opposite side there is this ads from intermarché, a French supermarket chain, made by real artists.
That’s classic.
