According to Wired.com, Meta published an advertisement on Thursday morning to its official Instagram account promoting artificial intelligence, claiming AI will not “make us less connected” or “leave us behind.” The ad was set to David Bowie’s 1972 song “Five Years.”
According to TechCrunch, the advertisement begins with black-and-white shots of panicked headlines about AI, then shifts to color showing people smiling, dancing, and embracing. The voiceover states: “Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever the hell you want. But we’re betting on people, and we like those odds.”
The song choice drew attention due to its subject matter. According to Wired.com, “Five Years” is “about, among other things, the end of the world,” with opening lyrics stating “We had five years left to cry in / Earth was really dying.” TechCrunch describes it as “a song about the human race panicking after learning they will die in a mass-extinction event in five years.”
When contacted by Wired.com, Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan defended the choice, citing a 1972 Bowie quote sourced to BowieBible.com: “People are so incredibly serious and scared of the future that I would wish to turn the feeling the other way, into a wave of optimism.”
According to Wired.com, the ad also highlighted use cases for Meta’s smart glasses.