Snickers Thinks AI Deserves A Candy Bar – We Don’t

I am so tired of AI filling up my inbox–that goes for emails written with AI and story ideas about AI. Plenty of people more qualified than I have covered how dangerous, wasteful, and unnecessary these apps are. (It doesn’t take an expert to know that whatever’s happening over on r/MyBoyfriendIsAI needs to stop as quickly as possible.)

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Despite the broad consumer distaste for AI-based advertising from major companies like Coca-Cola and campaigns from Liquid Death and Garage Beer suggesting we mail our piss to data centers so they can waste less water, SNICKERS has decided they’ll succeed where others have failed. Today, SNICKERS has announced “the world’s first digital candy bar made specifically for AI”. I can speak for everyone when I say we were all waiting with bated breath for someone to create fake food for fake personalities to fake eat while using up real electricity and real water.

According to SNICKERS, “hallucinations” from AI chatbots (also known as their frequent, unavoidable errors in accuracy and judgment) can be attributed to “hunger moments”. SNICKERS thinks “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” applies to algorithms whose priority is to keep you using their app over anything else, sanity or safety be damned.

The candy brand was kind enough to share a demo recording of ChatGPT “eating” a digital SNICKERS and spitting out a shorter, simpler answer. Legally speaking, I have absolutely no opinion on whether this advertising is formally suggesting that eating a SNICKERS reduces the clarity of your communication.

My favorite part of that demo recording was the disclaimer at the very end: “Heads up: Snickers provided the snack. The LLM provided the answer. So please fact check.” Yes, baked into every answer you’ll get by participating in this promotion is a reminder that no guardrails stop your chatbot of choice from flagrantly lying to you if it thinks that’s what you want to hear.

Straight from SNICKERS, here’s the step-by-step breakdown on how to participate in this new “Hungr.AI” campaign.

1. Ask AI a Question: Open your AI assistant and ask it any question: serious, random or even a little weird. 
2. Get Your Answer: See what AI comes up with. If the answer isn’t quite satisfying, keep going. 
3. Give AI a Byte of the Digital SNICKERS: Visit the SNICKERS website, copy your Digital SNICKERS and paste it into the same AI conversation. 
4. Get a More Satisfying Answer: Hit send and see how the digital SNICKERS bar helps your AI share back a cleaner answer, sharper thinking and a more truthful response. 
5. Snag a Free SNICKERS for YOU: Visit Reddit or Snapchat through the SNICKERS website to participate and claim a free SNICKERS bar, while supplies last or through September 20. 

In my professional opinion, you should skip steps one through four–not only today but every day. Maybe that free candy bar can get the nasty taste of this idea out of our mouths.