AI-Generated Cave Art

A Look at Microsoft’s Copilot Super Bowl Ad

In Culture is Our Business, Marshall McLuhan suggests that advertisements are like the cave art of our time. He writes,

“Like cave paintings, ads are not intended to be looked at or seen, but rather to exert influence at a distance, as though by ESP. Like cave paintings, they are not means of private but of corporate expression”

McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride consists of a series of critical reflections on ads and comics from his day. In it, McLuhan writes,

“…it is the function of the critic to direct serious, controversial attention to the layers of human significance beneath the most banal and evasive features of native tradition and experience”

What could be more banal and omnipresent than ads? The other day while pumping my gas at Exxon Mobil, the pump began squawking, screeching, and barking at me. It was an advertisement. I was a captive audience. I was particularly annoyed.

Nevertheless, ads can tell you a remarkable amount about the culture that you live in. In the spirit of McLuhan, for today’s post I take a quick look at one of our most recent cave paintings: Microsoft’s Copilot ad from this year’s Super Bowl.

It’s worth mentioning that Super Bowl ads deviate from regular ads insofar as they are mostly recognized as an art form. People consciously give more attention to Super Bowl ads than they do to regular run-of-the-mill ads. Nevertheless, this ad affords interesting food for thought about “the layers of human significance” at play within it.

The Ad Itself

Here’s the commercial:

The ad begins with a guy driving his car in what appears to be a dreary Midwest landscape. Oddly enough, we never see this guy’s face again. Take a good look because that face is not coming back into the commercial.

A title card appears over his head in lower-case sans-serif letters without punctuation (which is not insignificant); it reads: “they say I will never open my business”

Lower-case sans-serif font without punctuation means: We’re cool. Trust us. We’re not a mega corporation, even though we’re Microsoft and made $211.9 billion in revenue last year. The form matches the content (or at least the message that Microsoft wants to convey).

Back to the commercial. A blonde guy who looks like Kurt Cobain appears next. He breaks the fourth wall, saying directly into the camera: “Good morning.” There’s no possible way to look into a camera and say “Good morning” without sounding incredibly awkward.

Then another lady appears staring off into the distance. She’s pensive. It’s still morning. She got up early to do something. What’s she going to do? A title card appears over her face: “or get my degree”

We’re then treated to a guy walking to his car. Maybe it’s the guy from the opening shot. The wintery background seems to confirm as much. But we can’t see his face, so we don’t really know.

Another lady (different this time) peers out of a bus window. It’s no longer the morning for her but nighttime. She’s clearly on the grind. We feel the mystique of hard work and the 9AM to 9PM ethos that makes America the capital of what Pieper (following Weber) calls the world of “total work.”

The mystique of work woven together with AI is essentially what this commercial is all about. It is about working yourself into existence and about how AI helps you become real through what you produce. We haven’t gotten to AI just yet, but you can already guess it is going to solve all the problems that these people currently have with their work.

Back to the ad. At one point, some poor chap is sitting on his bed Indian style. He’s staring at his computer because he hasn’t the slightest idea of what to write. Or maybe he just received an email from a producer saying his script has been rejected. Or maybe his agent said, “Stop sending us AI-generated scripts, Gabe.” We don’t know for certain. All we know for sure is he’s disappointed and unhappy. Look at that total non-smile he’s wearing. A title card appears over his face: “they say I will never make my movie”

What does this guy need to do? In reality, he probably needs to write a half dozen bad scripts, get them rejected, and go through this painful process of learning how to compose screenplays. He obviously needs to fall in love with the craft of writing itself. But that’s not going to happen. Oh, no. Not in this commercial. He’s going to use AI to write that script. And then he’s going to take credit for it.

We’re treated to more pensive people staring at their computer or phone or walking through the street or looking directly into the camera. In the morning or on the bus. More title cards of what people say you can’t do (“build something”) and that point out your deficiencies:

“they say I’m too old to learn something new”

“too young to change the world”

The music intensifies. Another title card reads, “but I say”….

And then lo! The one lady finally opens her mouth and says directly into the camera: “watch me”  

The commercial is exactly one minute long, and she delivers this line at exactly 30 seconds. The planning of the ad is incredibly rational. And the name of the product is also incredibly rational (more on that in just a second).

It’s at this juncture that the hero shows up: Microsoft Copilot. We see a title card in miniscule letters reminding us that what we’re about to see is not in fact real: “Screen images simulated.” As if all the other images in this ad also have not been simulated. These are fake people manipulating screens populated with fake images (i.e., “simulated” images). And they’re all trying to become REAL. And what does it mean to become real? It means to become a screenwriter, a chemist, etc.

Being real means finding your identity in your work, which can be hard. Copilot can make all this easier, or at least that is what this ad suggests.

Anyway, just after the lady says, “watch me,” we see the following:

The image passes too quickly for you to actually see what’s on the screen if you can’t pause it. But on YouTube, you can see that she’s using Copilot to “Develop a unique menu centered around avocados to serve at my watch party.” This is a strange and oddly anticlimactic thing to be looking at precisely when the commercial reaches its crescendo.

Of course, the “watch party” is a way of identifying with the Super Bowl audience viewing the commercial. But the tone of what she’s looking up doesn’t in any way match up with the tone of the rest of the ad. It would’ve been more appropriate if she had asked Copilot to help her develop a nuclear reactor. But a menu centered around avocados? What a letdown!

Just a few more details from the commercial itself. Someone types, “Generate storyboard images for the dragon scene in my script…” Another writes, “Write code for my 3D open world game…” And yet another prompts Copilot with: “Quiz me in organic chemistry…”

Here are several proposed identities: Screenwriter, video game developer, and organic chemist. There’s also a shot of a guy scrolling through logos for his mechanic business, so we do get a blue-collar entrepreneur thrown into the mix.

The ad ends with Copilot’s slogan: “Your everyday AI companion.” And finally, four words appear: “Anyone. Anywhere. Any device.”

Play for Me

OK, so what does all this mean? What are the “layers of human significance” at play within what McLuhan might call a modern-day cave painting?

Let’s begin with the name “Copilot.” Obviously, a Copilot is someone (or something) that helps you fly a plane. A “copilot” is not an “autopilot.” Generally speaking, though, if you let AI code or write your entire film script, you’re no longer flying the plane. AI is.

The commercial oscillates back and forth between letting AI do auxiliary tasks (e.g., create a storyboard) and asking AI to help with something more fundamental (e.g., “Write code for my 3D open word game”). In all fairness, the commercial never explicitly says “do this entire thing for me.” But the suggestion, at least, is that it could.  

Microsoft could’ve chosen to go with something more surreal or playful for a name. For example, GPT’s image generator DALL-E is a pun on “Dalí” (Salvador Dalí) and hearkens to the lovable robot film WALL-E. Leonardo.ai’s image generator draws upon the commonplace of Leonardo DaVinci as a Renaissance man, a scientist and artist. But Microsoft went with the logical (and arguably boring) route of Copilot. In my opinion, the name is not metaphorical or playful enough to capture their intended audience of creative and entrepreneurial types.

Let’s not gloss over the marketing of the tool as an “AI companion,” either. If you’re a child of the 90’s, you remember that a Tamagotchi is a companion. You have to feed it and whatnot. A “companion,” etymologically speaking, relates to “company,” which also hearkens to the Latin “com” (with) and “panis” (bread). You break bread with a “companion.” Will you break bread with your AI? Will you feed it scraps of food that fall from your table? Will it displace the dog as “man’s best friend”? Certainly, you will feed it. You’ll feed it information. And that’s what Microsoft wants….

Moving on. Let’s think about the genre of a Super Bowl ad for a second. Many Superbowl ads choose humor as the dominant key that they convey their message in. For example, State Farm’s Arnold Schwarzenegger commercial uses humor as does Dunkin Donuts’ cringey Ben Affleck ad. The controversial “He Gets Us” ad from this year’s Super Bowl, of course, went with a solemn theme in the grand style (and thereby opened itself up to comic parody). And, in like manner, this Copilot ad speaks in an exalted tone. Had Microsoft used humor, they might not have been subject to the following blistering comments (found on the ad’s YouTube video):

“They said I couldn't do this. I said, ‘you're right, I'll let AI do it for me’.”

Here’s another:

“There's no victory like being relieved of your creative endeavours by computationally expensive statistics.”

Ouch. My guess is that Copilot didn’t write those comments.

Microsoft’s appeal is to everyone here (“Anyone. Anywhere. Any device.”). And what is everyone supposed to desire? To be an artist or scientist, of course. I didn’t see any housewives or priests in this commercial. You might reply that they didn’t have time with a one-minute ad to include everyone (or “anyone”). Fair enough. But isn’t it clear that only certain creative and productive types are emphasized here?

An advertisement “puts on” its audience like clothing, McLuhan might suggest. When you watch this commercial, who appears in it? Little kids? Geriatric patients? No. Most are adults probably somewhere between 20 and 40 who have a restless urge to do something with their lives. There’s an older guy in there somewhere. But the adults in the commercial are also meant to be you. In other words, the ad mirrors back its audience to its audience. You’re meant to identify with what the company is saying and doing. Rhetoric, after all, involves identification.

The commercial clearly embodies the Romantic cult of authenticity and self-creation. Be yourself. Be a screenwriter. It also evokes the American mythos of work. If you try hard enough, you will become a screenwriter, an entrepreneur, etc. And if you’re already trying hard (as at least some of the people in the commercial appear to be), then AI can help you to accomplish your goals, which seems reasonable enough.

I’ll end with a few questions to bring us full circle. Why did cave artists paint on their walls? What would they have thought about AI drawing their buffalos for them? Perhaps our paleolithic ancestors drew in the spirit of play. Perhaps in the future, though, AI will play for us. I look forward to next year’s ads, which, of course, may be made with AI. It’s no coincidence that some of this year’s commercials included AI-generated imagery.

The walls are already beginning to fill up with what AI has drawn. Are you paying attention?  

Thank you for reading. If you’ve appreciated this post, please like and subscribe. If I’m not mistaken, the Helvetica documentary covers the utilization of lowercase sans-serif font as type of public relations endeavor by large corporations to humanize them (think “facebook,” “amazon,” etc.). Just as a heads up, if you elect to watch this documentary, it may contain inappropriate content. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the film, so I’m not sure I’d 100% recommend it. In any case, you can read more about it here.