Apple apologizes for its tone-deaf advertising that crushed human creativity to make the iPad

Apple has reportedly apologized for its tone-deaf “Crush!” an ad that sparked a furious reaction among artists, musicians and other creatives. AdAge reports that Apple said the video “missed the mark” and abandoned plans to air the sweet-turned-horror ad on TV.

It’s clear that Apple intends the ad to serve as a metaphor for all the myriad creative tools available to a person when they drop $1,000 or more on a new iPad Pro. Released during Tuesday’s event, the video shows an array of musical instruments and other instruments of human expression, including a guitar, drums, trumpet, amplifiers, a turntable, a television and more. “All I Ever Need Is You” by Sonny & Cher soundtracks the clip.

All the objects are soon revealed to be sitting on top of an industrial crusher, which descends on the scattered creative tools, exploding in orbs of satisfyingly colored smoke. But when the crusher comes back, we see that everything has been converted into a shiny new iPad Pro.

A decade ago, this ad probably wouldn’t have been a big deal. But Apple’s marketers completely thought about the context of the moment. The ad comes weeks before Apple takes the stage at WWDC to announce its generative AI features that its investors are craving.

Generative AI, as you may have heard, needs something to train on — and that means human work. It learns from existing content to create algorithmically generated words, pictures, music, voices or who knows what else. It also has the ability to put those same creators—most of whom don’t have cushy jobs at Apple or other Big Five tech companies—out of a job as corporations and consumers eagerly embrace robots designed to put creators on the brink of unemployment.

Context is everything, and Apple failed spectacularly there. His ad serves as a perfect metaphor for the potential of generative AI to crush human creation, turning us all into “quick artists” who type words into text boxes to replace years of training and experience. (Of course, generative AI also has really exciting applications, but much more needs to be done than the societal-level chaos it can and will unleash.)

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s extremely important to us to design products that empower creators around the world,” said Thor Mairen, Apple’s vice president of marketing communications. AdAge. “Our goal is always to celebrate the countless ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video and we’re sorry.”

Hey, an apology means something. But we’ll see what tone Apple takes next month when it releases the tools that started the apology in the first place. Something tells me the train is out of the station and will be moving full steam ahead no matter how much creativity the company has in its DNA.