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Those of us of a certain age will remember the magic of walking into a Toys “R” Us as a kid with all the excitement and endless possibilities that came with it.
Amazon and online shopping have all but killed that excitement, but the former toy store giant is doing its best to try and rekindle it.
Toys “R” Us (which still exists?!) released a new commercial on Tuesday using generative AI, and the result something out of a horror show.
Toys "R" Us has released the first OpenAI SORA generated brand commercial
The use of generative AI in commercial work is here. pic.twitter.com/rfbHC3NQRD
— Allen T. (@Mr_AllenT) June 25, 2024
Toys “R” Us closed what was then its last physical location in 2018. But it made a return in 2021 with an opening at the American Dream Mall. The company followed up with the openings of more than 400 Toys “R” Us shop-within-shops at Macy’s stores nationwide.
The new commercial tells the story behind the company’s founding. In theory, it’s a great idea and should play on nostalgia. In reality, the new commercial represented everything that is wrong with AI.
“Love this commercial is like, “Toys R Us started with the dream of a little boy who wanted to share his imagination with the world. And to show how, we fired our artists and dried Lake Superior using a server farm to generate what that would look like in Stephen King’s nightmares,” one viewer tweeted.
“Toys R Us isn’t even really a company anymore because private equity destroyed it. Commercial made by no one to advertise a company that doesn’t exist featuring childhood experiences that will never happen again,” said another.
And that is exactly the crux of the issue with generative AI. It is entirely antithetical to the idea of creation and imagination. It is about replacing the expanse of the human brain with the possibilities of machine learning. It’s exactly what Toys “R” Us founder Charles P. Lazarus would not have wanted.
But like it or not, this is what we’ve got.