Observations from Watching This Year's Super Bowl

I was in Portugal for the Super Bowl this year, which is a bit of a bummer because my home team (Go Seahawks!) made it all the way to the big game to take revenge for the humiliation they suffered at the Patriots' hands a decade or so ago. Instead of experiencing this occasion with my Seattle friends at a sports bar, I watched the game play out on the DAZN app, where I paid $1 to stream the whole thing with ads starting at 11:30pm local time. We have to take the slices of home where we can get them.

Below are a few observations I had from watching the broadcast, and specifically, the ads and the halftime show. Overall, it was fairly bleak and depressing (see also: Matt Goldberg's commentary), but not without some bright spots!

Svedka and the AI Slop Bowl

As far as I'm concerned, the ad that defined the evening was Svedka's "Shake Your Bots Off." It's hideous in appearance and discouraging in its AI-infused execution. It certainly doesn't make anything, let alone vodka, into something aspirational or desirable. And yet its aesthetic captures the specific cultural moment we're living in: one in which a lot of companies are trying to make AI and its related workflows into the Next Big Thing, but where the reality in execution is not quite there yet. The result is this uncanny valley where we see a simulacrum of human creativity, but in such a lifeless form that it's actively repellent.

Instacart goes old-school with Ben Stiller

I don't have anything particularly deep to say about Instacart's ad. It's just refreshingly analog in its execution and very simple in its pleasures. Who can say no to Ben Stiller humiliating himself by smashing into things? Couldn't be me.

De-Aging Is The Hottest Thing

There's something profoundly depressing about seeing ads in which the most famous people in the world are digitally de-aged. Aside from the technology being flawed at best, it strikes me as a sign of an ailing culture, or at least one in whose best days are behind it. Our system for creating mono-cultural megastars is dead and rather than grapple with that or try to make up for it with creativity alone, we're milking the fame from these celebrities until there's nothing left to extract. The Dunkin ad is a good example. While it's fun to see Ben Affleck make fun of himself, the final ad feels like less than the sum of its extremely famous parts.

What if Jurassic Park Went Well?

Take everything I said above about de-aging and double it regarding this Xfinity ad that re-creates classic scenes from Jurassic Park. The idea is that if those park workers had had Comcast's flawless service, their system never would have gone down and everyone would have had a great time.

I'm glad that something was able to bring these original cast members back together again, but seeing a classic film bastardized in this way was pretty bleak, man. If only there was some story I could point to – a movie even – whose moral was that one should not use technology to interfere with the natural order of things.

On the plus side, it was still better than Jurassic World: Dominion.

Claude Backpedals, Kind Of

This was probably one of the most interesting stories of the night for me: Early this week, Anthropic published several YouTube videos previewing their campaign for the Super Bowl. In the ads, customers attempt to get advice from anthropomorphized AI chatbots, but the chatbots are overly positive and annoying, and they feature intrusive ads. The ads never named ChatGPT but the imitation was so familiar that the head of ChatGPT crashed out about it on Twitter. ChatGPT has already stated they will not implement ads in this way, but the tone of the chatbot was so familiar that people might've been misled.

In the original ad on YouTube, the ad ends by saying:

Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.

But in the final version that aired last night, the ads ended with this copy:

There is a time and place for ads. Your conversations with AI should not be one.

The new copy avoids making a product claim that might not end up being accurate. It's also a broader, more philosophical claim and perhaps stronger for it. In general, I think it's a pretty bad idea to try to advertise your product by showcasing another product it's not like, but these ads did gain a ton of traction online so who knows.

The Half-Time Show

I watched Bad Bunny's halftime show with awe and admiration. While I understood basically none of the lyrics (here's a good explainer of what was going on), the vibes were wonderful. One of our great musical artists was sharing his culture with us and he wasn't going to leave anything on the field, so to speak. And the conclusion, in which he verbally celebrated all the Americas while marching toward the camera in front of a screen that declared "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE" sent a beautiful and potent message.

The United States has always been a mix of different cultures and peoples. It has been one of our greatest strengths. It still can be.

Other Stuff David Chen Has Made

• On Decoding TV, Patrick Klepek and I discussed our thoughts on season 2 of Fallout, which we both found pretty disappointing.

• On A Cast of Kings, Jessie Earl joined me to discuss episode four of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. So far, this is shaping up to be one of my favorite Game of Thrones things ever.

• On The Filmcast, we discussed Sam Raimi's latest film Send Help, which is a total blast.