It's hard to believe it's real, and I'm not talking about the uncanny AI world of McDonalds' new Christmas ad, but the fact of its existence. The ad's theme is how terrible Christmas is, and it depicts various mishaps and accidents ruining the holiday. Gifts are destroyed in car accidents; shoppers are dragged down the street by closing bus doors; pedestrians are crushed by falling banks of snow. The misery of Christmas can be alleviated only at the carbohydrate vending tombs that McDonalds now has instead of restaurants.

It's trying to be funny, in the sense that it shows things going wrong in zany and slapstic fashion, but the slop-sheen of AI disconnects it from irony and relatability alike. It lands for me in the same zone as Facebook AI images of starving babies and amputees. 10

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