Category: Blaze Media
McDonald’s team admits workload on hated AI Christmas ad ‘far exceeded’ live-action shoots
Another advertiser wants consumers to know how hard people worked on its artificial intelligence-driven ad.
Sweetshop Films is behind the recently pulled McDonald’s Christmas commercial that appeared on YouTube but lasted only about four days before being dropped like a hot Christmas coal.
‘The results aren’t worth the effort.’
The ad was generated entirely by AI for McDonald’s Netherlands, which took ownership of the fact that it was poorly received.
“The Christmas commercial was intended to show the stressful moments during the holidays in the Netherlands,” the company said in a statement, per the Guardian.
“However, we notice — based on the social comments and international media coverage — that for many guests this period is ‘the most wonderful time of the year,'” they added.
Sweetshop Films defended its use of AI for the ad. “It’s never about replacing craft; it’s about expanding the toolbox. The vision, the taste, the leadership … that will always be human,” said CEO Melanie Bridge, per NBC News.
Bridge took it one step farther, though, and claimed her team worked longer than a typical ad team would.
“And here’s the part people don’t see,” the CEO continued. “The hours that went into this job far exceeded a traditional shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full-time.”
These statements were not met with holiday cheer.
RELATED: Coca-Cola doubles down on AI ads, still won’t say ‘Christmas’
X users went rabid at the idea that Sweetshop, alongside AI specialist company the Gardening Club, put more effort into producing the videos than a typical production team would for a commercial.
The Gardening Club reportedly made statements like, “We were working right on the edge of what this tech can do,” and, “The man-hours poured into this film were more than a traditional Production.”
“So all that ‘effort’ and they still managed to produce the ugliest slop [?] just goes to show how useless gen AI is,” wrote an X user named Tristan.
An alleged art director named Haley said she was legitimately confused by the idea of the “sheer human craft” claimed to be behind the AI generation.
“What craft? What does that even look like outside of just clicking to generate over and over and over and over again until you get something you like?” she asked.
Another X user name Bruce added that “AI users are like high schoolers who got good grades because they tried hard, then are shocked to find at university they get judged on results, not effort. I have no doubt they try hard. But the results aren’t worth the effort.”
Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images
The Sweetshop CEO did indeed express that the road to the McDonald’s AI ad was a painstaking endeavor, claiming that “for seven weeks, we hardly slept” and “generated what felt like dailies — thousands of takes — then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production.”
“This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film,” Bridge said, according to Futurist.
The positioning of AI generation as “craftsmanship” is exactly what Coca-Cola cited for its ad in November, when it said the company pored through 70,000 video clips over 30 days.
The boasts resulted in backlash akin to what McDonald’s is receiving, which included reactions on X like, “McDonald’s unveiled what has to be the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year — worse than Coca-Cola’s.”
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Minneapolis mayor’s awkward Somali food stunt backfires — and Sara Gonzales’ taste test sets off the left
Democrat Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is taking a stand for Somalians following the discovery that billions of Minnesota taxpayer dollars went to Somalian fraud, and he’s doing it by recording himself trying to eat their food.
The key word is “trying.”
On December 5, the mayor sat down at a Somali restaurant with a few Somalis while the camera rolled. However, the camera caught Frey’s odd facial expressions as he slowly chewed the rice and beans for what seemed to be forever.
“Jacob Frey … was not enjoying the Somalian food that he was eating,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments, explaining that his failed attempt at making Somalian food look good inspired her to try it herself.
“Is Somalian food as bad as Jacob Frey makes it look?” Gonzales asks, before trying it.
Gonzales tries the food but can’t stomach more than a few bites. And because her reaction was so negative, she received a barrage of angry comments from the left.
“Jacob Frey kind of started it. He made me curious, and he was correct in his facial expressions, and I just — it’s so crazy how you can get death threats over something like that from liberals,” Gonzales comments.
One user on the app X messaged Gonzales, writing, “Your heads [sic] gonna end up on a stick you dumb bitch. … You’re gonna’ get assassinated. Except your [sic] way less relevant than Charlie Kirk.”
“I can’t even explain why people are so pressed that Sara Gonzales said, ‘Somalian food sucks,’” Gonzales says.
“Checked it off my bucket list,” she continues. “Jacob Frey was correct.”
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Brown University Faces Questions About Security Policies After Sending Delayed Emergency Alert and Failing To Sound Sirens During Shooting
Brown University is facing questions over its security policies after its emergency sirens never sounded in response to Saturday’s shooting, while taking nearly 20 minutes to send an alert out to students. The scrutiny comes after campus cops passed no-confidence votes against their police chief and questioned the school’s emergency response capabilities.
The post Brown University Faces Questions About Security Policies After Sending Delayed Emergency Alert and Failing To Sound Sirens During Shooting appeared first on .
Cuckin’ in the Free World
The sun rises also. God’s taunt: the relentlessness of repetition; the unyielding promise of possibility. So gentle, yet so violent. A brown box lingers on the front steps, aching for evisceration’s gift. Begging to unburden itself. A soul ensconced within—laid bare in literary flesh, fixed in ink, and marketed for mass consumption. A cry for help. The sound of an American flag being raped.
The post Cuckin’ in the Free World appeared first on .
Pakistani national suspected in terror attack on Jewish gathering in Australia on first night of Hanukkah; over a dozen dead
A Pakistani national is suspected in what one police official called a “terrorist incident” against a Jewish gathering at an Australian beach on the first night of Hanukkah in which at least 15 were killed Sunday, including a 12-year-old.
Another 40 people were hospitalized with injuries, including two officers and three children, after the attack at Bondi Beach, CBS News reported.
‘What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of anti-Semitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations, and it is forever tarnished by what has occurred last evening.’
On Monday morning local time, police said two gunmen — a 50-year-old father and his 24-year-old son — opened fire while the local Jewish community was celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, the network news outlet said.
The 50-year-old gunman died, and his son was hospitalized in “serious condition,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said, according to CBS News.
More from the network news outlet:
The 24-year-old was identified as Naveed Akram, a Pakistani national based in Sydney, according to a U.S. intelligence briefing and a driver’s license provided by Australian police. Police previously said the deceased gunman was the son, but Lanyon later clarified that the father was shot and killed by police.
New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park said the death toll had risen from 12 to 16 overnight, including a 12-year-old child. Three other children are being treated in the hospital, he said.
“This is absolutely horrendous for the community broadly, but particularly the Jewish community. … What we saw last night was the worst of humanity, but at the same time, the very best of humanity,” Park told CBS News, which added that it is unclear if the number of fatalities or injuries included the gunmen.
The international organization Chabad, which represents a branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, said one of its rabbis — Rabbi Eli Schlanger — was among the dead, the network news outlet said, citing the Associated Press.
More from CBS News:
Called Hanukkah by the Sea, the event was held to mark the beginning of the Jewish holiday observed from sundown on Sunday until Monday, Dec. 22. More than 1,000 were at the beach when gunfire broke out, said Lanyon. He called the attack a “terrorist incident” and said the perpetrators used “long arms,” referring to long guns such as shotguns or rifles, to carry it out.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also characterized the attack as targeted, with Minns saying it “was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community.” The prime minister said it was “a targeted attack on Jewish Australians.”
“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of anti-Semitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations, and it is forever tarnished by what has occurred last evening,” Albanese said during a news conference Monday morning local time, the network news outlet noted.
Lanyon added to CBS News that police believed several improvised explosive devices were inside a vehicle at Campbell Parade — a main street that runs parallel to Bondi Beach — which officials discovered shortly after the shooting occurred; a rescue bomb disposal crew was at the scene.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a social media post said “the United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Australia targeting a Jewish celebration. Antisemitism has no place in this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific attack, the Jewish community, and the people of Australia,” the network news outlet reported.
More from CBS News:
One video appeared to show someone wrestling with one of the suspected gunmen and taking his weapon from him, according to Minns, who paid tribute to that individual in some of his comments Sunday.
The video was recorded by a bystander along Campbell Parade, a main street that runs parallel to Bondi Beach. In it, a man jumped up from a crouched position behind a parked car and tackled the suspect, who had just fired his weapon toward something out of view.
Following a short struggle, the man disarmed the suspect, pushed him to the ground, and turned the weapon on him, at which point the suspect stood up and walked in the opposite direction. The man then lowered the weapon and raised his free hand in the air. Off to the side, one person appeared to be lying unresponsive on the sidewalk beside a different vehicle.
RELATED: Kids have already found a way around Australia’s new social media ban: Making faces
Minns called the man — whom relatives named Ahmed al Ahmed, a fruit shop owner, to Australian media — a “genuine hero,” the network news outlet said.
More from CBS News:
Mass shootings in Australia are rare. But researchers have recorded dramatic upticks in antisemitic incidents in the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas terrorists on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, along with spikes in hate incidents against Muslim groups.
In response, the Australian government appointed special envoys last year to address antisemitism and Islamophobia in its communities. However, attacks have continued to happen since then. In July, an arsonist set fire to the door of a synagogue in Melbourne, another major Australian city, seven months after a different synagogue in the same city was burned by criminals in a blaze that injured one worshipper.
This is a developing story; updates may be added.
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