Anthropic asks the hard questions, but has it built your trust?

Hope for change?

‘There’s Hope in Hard Questions’ by Mother is directed by Myles McAuliffe and was created after conversations with more than 120,000 people worldwide about their hopes and fears surrounding artificial intelligence.

The film is more a collage of questions rather than answers, with quotes including "Who's going to hit the brakes if we really need to?" and "Could AI help people stop feeling misunderstood?"

The ad comes at an interesting time, when AI companies are emphasising the human side of their products, and the world problems it can potentially solve.

We covered a lot of the AI angles in this piece, but Anthropic’s recent effort stands out because instead of reassuring audiences with carefully crafted corporate certainty, it acknowledges that some queries remain unresolved.

Our take

On the surface, Anthropic seems to recognise that public trust cannot be engineered through reassurance alone. However, it should be noted that humility, self-awareness and self-deprecation are often themselves a ‘sell’ in advertising.

Volkswagen Beetle’s ‘Think Small’, for example, sold its diminutive stylings as an asset at a time when America celebrated size and power.

Meanwhile, when KFC ran out of chicken across the UK, it published the "FCK" apology ad, admitting failure, while basking in a bit of humility.

Vulnerability, then, can’t be underestimated as a branding tool, but we can’t deny this is a damn good ad. Its visual style, with dark black backgrounds contrasting with stark vignettes, is powerful, and not something we’ve seen elsewhere. 

The narrative, meanwhile, subtly shifts from tough questions to ones imbued with a tone of optimism, guiding the viewer to consider the positive aspects of AI.

There remain several caveats to the questions asked, some of which we chatted over in our Creative Moment meeting this week. One of which is the utilitarian angle “how can we benefit the most people…” and whether this would be the most moral solution… but deep diving into that would be a whole article in itself.

On a personal note, after seeing firsthand how AI tech can be used to improve medical scans, the human health case was a powerful one to bring up. It’s very much an ad that will elicit varied responses on a case-by-case basis then. And, rather ironically, it’s a film that will stir up more questions than answers.

The questions here are valid, however, and enquiry remains a powerful tool, ultimately for solutions.