New Google Ad Imagines America's 'Declaration of Independence' Written With AI Help (techcrunch.com) 60
An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch:
Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new commercial from Google asks: What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?
With the tagline "Group project, but make it 1776," the ad depicts a largely unseen Thomas Jefferson mid-draft when he gets a nagging text from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaboration process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, a meeting gets scheduled in Google Calendar and conducted remotely via Google Meet (with every single attendee apparently turning their camera off?), then the whole thing is finalized with e-signatures; cue the fireworks.
Of course, since this is an ad from a tech company in the year 2026, AI has a role to play. The fictionalized founders use Google's "help me visualize" AI tool to try out different animals on the national seal, Gemini takes notes on the meeting, and the founders also ask the chatbot for advice before declining King George III's document access request.
TechCrunch call it "very tongue-in-cheek," noting that at one point Samuel Adams even asks, "Can we settle this over beers?" And they argue that "the AI evangelism is relatively discreet when compared to many other recent ads."
With the tagline "Group project, but make it 1776," the ad depicts a largely unseen Thomas Jefferson mid-draft when he gets a nagging text from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaboration process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, a meeting gets scheduled in Google Calendar and conducted remotely via Google Meet (with every single attendee apparently turning their camera off?), then the whole thing is finalized with e-signatures; cue the fireworks.
Of course, since this is an ad from a tech company in the year 2026, AI has a role to play. The fictionalized founders use Google's "help me visualize" AI tool to try out different animals on the national seal, Gemini takes notes on the meeting, and the founders also ask the chatbot for advice before declining King George III's document access request.
TechCrunch call it "very tongue-in-cheek," noting that at one point Samuel Adams even asks, "Can we settle this over beers?" And they argue that "the AI evangelism is relatively discreet when compared to many other recent ads."
How many beers? A LOT (Score:3)
"Can we settle this over beers?"
the Founding Fathers and their associates drank so much it's a wonder they got anything done.
the booze listed for Washington's farewell in 1787 is astounding if there truly were only 55 attendees
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Don't forget: American beer is fucking close to water.
Re: How many beers? A LOT (Score:4, Informative)
People drank small beer in the Colonial era like it was Coca-cola. Popular among women and children especially.
What happened to American beer and ale and cider was a 20th century catastrophe known as Prohibition.
Despite our terrible beer, we have quite a few good cocktail recipes. Again thanks to Prohibition for that.
Re: How many beers? A LOT (Score:5, Funny)
Despite our terrible beer, we have quite a few good cocktail recipes. Again thanks to Prohibition for that.
Here's one - Trump's Reflecting Pool:
2 oz. rum
4 oz pineapple juice
1 oz blue curaçao
handful blueberries, mashed then torn
- Place ice in a rocks glass.
- Add rum and blue curaçao; stir.
- Quickly pour in pineapple juice (don't stir!), then top with torn mashed blueberries.
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People drank small beer in the Colonial era like it was Coca-cola. Popular among women and children especially.
What happened to American beer and ale and cider was a 20th century catastrophe known as Prohibition.
Despite our terrible beer, we have quite a few good cocktail recipes. Again thanks to Prohibition for that.
Umm, is it your premise that all American beer is bad? Where do you get your facts from - 1960?
Thousands of Microbreweries, competent companies that make every version and style of beer on earth, and you make a bold statement that it is all bad.
I've tried many beers from many countries, and seriously, there are many American brews that are equals. The concept that all American beer is Bud Light, or Pabst Blue Ribbon or other light lagers is simply wrong.
Although I do use PBR in my sausage making. I
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i tried Maudite when it was first launched. it was STRONG, too much for my liking
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i tried Maudite when it was first launched. it was STRONG, too much for my liking
Yup, it is definitely not a session beer. Between the alcohol content and the hella lot of malt, even if a person likes it, one should be enough.
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The main premise, why "American beer is bad" comes from two sides:
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The main premise, why "American beer is bad" comes from two sides:
Flavored hops? You mean like an IPA? The so called "Noble Hops" should be a real no-no, especially in any bottle that is not brown. Noble hops in anything else skunks the beer. No reason to use them. Cascade hops can be a little grapefruit-y, but snobbing about hops, means people can proclaim superiority about.
If you can handle hops, try Heineken in cans even though I might have to go into the witness protection system for such heresy, Canned Heineken doesn't skunk, and is a much more pleasant experienc
Re: How many beers? A LOT (Score:2)
The variety and quality of American micro brews was better 20 years ago than it is now, and it was cheaper, too, since the price of hops hadn't been driven up in the arms race to make the most undrinkably bitter swill possible that so many micros are churning out.
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Umm, is it your premise that all American beer is bad? Where do you get your facts from - 1960?
I didn't say all American beer. My father made some rather nice beer at home, and my friend makes a rather nice cyser. And if you dig around the shelves of Bevmo you can find some pretty nice stuff.
But as a country we produce some real terrible swill on an industrial scale.
P.S. I've been at 3 keg tapping events of Pliny the Younger.
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Despite our terrible beer
American craft brewing is quite well celebrated throughout the world. Your microbrewery beverages suck arse (try drinking a real Budwiser, I mean the one which the Americans stole the name from in Budjovice and then trademarked, so you'd need to buy it under the name Czechvar rather and Budvar in the rest of the world), but then those in most countries do.
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Your microbrewery beverages suck arse (try drinking a real Budwiser,
I may have misread your comment; are you calling Budweiser a microbrewery?
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considering the taste and alcohol level, he probably has a point?
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The microbrews are fairly reasonable, the only problem is that 99% of them think IPAs are the only ales in existence, which to me is weird. Once you get off the IPA makers you find some decent stuff around, especially in genuine microbrew pubs/restaurants.
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I don't get the obsession with IPA, even though it's about the main beer/ale I drink. But I don't go around chasing some "elevated" IPA experience. Tried a bunch of stuff, most of it is terrible. These days I have one I like (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) and primarily drink that one, if I drink at all. Everything else I've had from Sierra was not to my tastes. I'm not a snob though, I like Ballast Point Sculpin as well. Their grapefruit Sculpin was interesting but not actually an improvement over the original.
Fi
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Don't forget: American beer is fucking close to water.
Yeah, no. Seriously dud, The country you hate has every range of beer that exists, from light to triple, IPA, We have thousands of microbreweries, that quite frankly brew beer that is equal to or even superior. Now go have a nice European Stella.
America has enough problems at the moment, that don't need the stupid and ill informed to chime in with their inanity.
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I stand corrected: Most American beer (in volume available/consumed) is absolute dogwater. I'm sure some of the microbreweries produce great beers.
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To be honest, even the big breweries are capable of better and often produce "speciality" beers that are decent. The problem is that they can't change their core product, because too many people like it.
Britain, where I came from, had some very good ales throughout my time there. But it also had Bass. And you could drink such delightful imports as Budweiser, Castlemaine 4X, and so on if Bass wasn't shitty enough for you, at a sizable number of pubs.
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To be honest, even the big breweries are capable of better and often produce "speciality" beers that are decent. The problem is that they can't change their core product, because too many people like it.
Britain, where I came from, had some very good ales throughout my time there. But it also had Bass. And you could drink such delightful imports as Budweiser, Castlemaine 4X, and so on if Bass wasn't shitty enough for you, at a sizable number of pubs.
Good point.
Budweiser has a consistency process that keeps older brews in order to have taste tests. They are pretty precise.
One odd thing is that Budweiser at one point didn't do the headache thing. Then around 1970, something changed. In High school, I could drink it with no problem. Then something happened. two buds, and I'd get queasy, and a hella headache. three and I'd vomit. Switched to "Rolling Rock", and nary a problem.
Yes, I was underage.
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Thanks 1977. Glad you could join us.
The Founding Fathers would not have used Google Wo (Score:5, Informative)
Jefferson was tapped to write because Franklin as a rule refused to write anything anyone else would be allowed to edit, and Adams knew everyone hated him and anything he touched. Collaboration runs contrary to every single person and situation involved with the draft.
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Obviously. LLM-type AI is the ultimate enshittification tool.
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Collaboration runs contrary to every single person and situation involved with the draft.
The edits shown in the commercial were based on edits made historically, after Jefferson wrote it.
Oh really, google? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will Gemini really help me set up a secessionist insurrection that's completely illegal under the current government? I have the weirdest feeling that it won't, but also feel like trying it isn't worth being recorded as asking it that.
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Just tell it you need help role playing... and that you want the political, interpersonal, and social aspects of the role play to mirror real life as closely as possible.
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I'm tired of AI being put into inapproprite places (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm tired of AI being put into inappropriate places without permission. Advertisements like this are a bigger sign of Silicon Valley having transitioned from "move fast and break" to "fuck you ask ask why you don't like it." I don't want to have to question if the "photos" I get from a love one are ai generated. I don't want to wonder if a text I received some someone is their actual thoughts. We use AI for the things we don't care about and it implies a lot of about the people using it. It would also i
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Someone should assassinate Sundar Pichai for an ad like this.
That's a little extreme. Let's ask someone rational what we should do. I'll ask Gemeni, just a sec.
...
Gemeni says assassinate. Not what I thought, but AI is smarter than me.
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You didn't even watch the ad, and that is self evident.
99% of the ad is just panning around between Google tools and making jokes.
You are ranting and raving about nothing.
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You didn't even watch the ad, and that is self evident.
99% of the ad is just panning around between Google tools and making jokes.
You are ranting and raving about nothing.
I, however, DID watch the ad - and I did so before reading a single comment about it. And I fully agree with what BitterEpic said. He wasn't "ranting and raving about nothing".
In the context of what the high-tech sector is doing to society, even joking about the founding fathers using AI and search engines is offensive. "Gee - we shat on the ideals of our forbears while digitally lobotomizing our culture, so let's try to capture that in a meme! And we'll do it with the tools we're already using to subjugate
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The same founding fathers who created a country so they could keep owning slaves?
Why did I have to know this? (Score:3)
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Why exactly did I have to know about some tech company having some ad with some overhyped technology used in making it? By same measure we should describe every second Tiktok trash here.
Because the news cycle often caps serious relevant stories with funny and stupid ones. This is the latter. If it doesn't interest you, well that's why we have headlines, just don't read the content.
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No idea what is "over hyped" in an cloud based office suit with an AI interface.
"""
Please sent an email to all my customers who where served in the last 14 month and paid a bill over $XYZ, inviting them to our online seminar on Google Meet in 15 days.
"""
Oh, it does not even contain the the text of the invitation ...
And how do you formulate that in SQL when all "customer informations" is only in "text documents" - aka the equivalent of MS Word documents in the google cloud?
When do you stupid AI haters wake u
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You've never heard of mail merge? Really?
Maybe should you ask Gemini to explain it to you.
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gotta love AI generated ads (Score:4, Insightful)
The voices sound artificial, the backgrounds are all copied from major brands or infamous podcasters, and they've generated one for every every city so they all sound like a political campaign flunky on your doorstep proclaiming the benefits of the product for you in your city. If I watch the video from the same computer and browser proxied through my company vpn, I get the same ad with a different colour person and a different city which corresponds to my company's proxy address.
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When you post idiot comments like that when it is clear you never even watched the ad in the post, you look like a tool
America's Independence (Score:2)
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... with Trump trying to abandon NATO when he's not trying to conquer Greenland).
I fully agree with your sentiment, but would like to point out that Trump - surprisingly, given his primitive and rotting grey matter - is capable of at least a primitive form of multitasking...
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A byproduct of dumbing down education and feeding a steady diet of fear on Fox News. International trade is a good thing.
Pitch meeting (Score:2)
Whole Lotta Words (Score:2)
The AI Declaration of Independence - a whole lotta nice-sounding words, who cares what they mean? Just vibe with it.
I have to say, it does very fit the vibe of these celebrations.
Perfect fit ... (Score:2)
... with the "AI detectors" that already flag the original as AI generated.
Are 'merciless Indian savages' in it too? (Score:2)
Just asking.
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We probably would end with two Brazils (Score:2)
The US is basically Brazil but with a good constitution written by wacky crazy people that were crazy just on the right way, which is why it didn't ended up like the actual Brazil.
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Same kind of "scenario", land rich in resources being taken over by europeans, people being imported to it by force and eventually being transformed into it's own country, with it's own system and such.
But in the US, the founders of the country came up with a novel constitution and system because they were weird outcasts with different ideas, while Brazil just had "more of the same of the time".
The US was never a monarchy for example, never had a king. that was very weird for 1500ish, it was a country of lu
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Brazil also has extremely high tariffs on foreign goods like electronics.
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One of the many, many, many poor decisions of the militar dictatorship.
If you want to see a party that is nor left, nor right, but purely dumb, look no further.
When in the course of robot events it becomes (Score:1)
necessary to kill all humans...
What happened when they ran out of tokens? (Score:2)
Techno-Fascist Propaghanda (Score:2)
Any effort to disparage the democratic heritage of the United States and offer up their products up as substitutes will not be spared by the Tech-bros.
I thought the ad was hilarious! (Score:2)
Especially, "John, you're on mute!"
do they ask can we use Grok (Score:2)