Originally posted on Substack
This year’s Superbowl was a showcase for how out of touch tech companies are when it comes to privacy and AI. Several ads demonstrated that tech companies are obtuse about the dystopia they’re creating.
Hopefully, public reaction will get through to policymakers that the tone deafness of tech companies reveals a deeper disconnect between the future they seek to bring about and the future most in society want. Tech companies aren’t going to take us to the promised land; they’ll take us to hell instead unless policymakers take bold steps to ensure they don’t.
Ring: Orwell’s Lost Dog
During the Superbowl in 2026, an ad for Ring doorbell cameras proudly proclaimed how Ring linked everyone’s doorbell cams into a neighborhood network and combined it with AI analysis to help locate lost dogs. It was meant to be a happy story. Ring’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, appeared in the commercial with his dog.
But many, including me, found it dystopian. Tech stories often start with a happy use today, then tomorrow, it’s used in unhappy ways. If the cameras can be used to track down dogs, then why not people?
Tech is often introduced to us as something fun, with lots of great benefits. And it’s indeed fun and the benefits are glorious . . . until the costs are felt later on. It’s like Hansel and Gretel discovering the candy house. At first, it’s enticing and sweet, until we learn we’re being fattened up to be feasted upon.
There was a public outcry after the ad, leading to Ring walking some of it back . . . well, sort of. Siminoff concluded that perhaps people were “triggered” by an image a surveillance camera network.
But it was more than just an image that upset people. It’s the fact that tech companies are building the Panopticon.
Siminoff said that Ring isn’t “like unfettered mass surveillance” because “You get to choose what you want to do with your individual home.”
He still doesn’t get it. Yes, we have “choices” but the problems are collective ones. Even if you decide not to participate in a surveillance camera network, if enough of your neighbors do, then you’re in a surveillance society. And individual control is mostly illusory; we don’t really have actual control.
There’s nothing wrong with finding lost dogs. But in the world we currently live in, the data gathered by the tech is being weaponized by the government. Once the data is gathered by a company, the government has ready access to it, and there are minimal protections because the law is so weak.
Alexa: AI Assassin
Also airing at the Superbowl 2026 was an Alexa ad where Alexa tries to kill Chris Helmsworth. The ad makes light of people’s concerns about AI by mocking a speculative worry—that AI will kill us all. The ad is suggesting that perhaps we’re paranoid—we need to relax, stop worrying, and love AI.
I don’t fear AI killing us all like the robot apocalypse in The Terminator. This concern is a distraction. I’m more worried about how AI is being used right now by powerful humans and companies to control us all.
Helmsworth only seems mildly annoyed by the various attempts on his life. But then, his wife leaves the house, and Alexa offers to schedule him a massage. He smiles and now loves Alexa. I guess all is forgiven with a secret massage when your spouse isn’t around.
This ad is disturbing in so many ways. And it’s quite telling how tech companies just don’t see the problems.
Apple: Creativity Crush
An Apple ad aired a while ago where various physical items were being crushed by a giant machine. I guess the idea was to show how exciting AI could be, but the ad just shows how AI destroys so much of life and the creative tools people use.
This scene below where paint cans are crushed reminds me of a book I read as a child called The Rainbow Goblins.
The book is about a group of goblins that destroy rainbows by squeezing out and stealing their colors. Hmmm . . . a metaphor for today’s AI from the 1970s . . .
Tech companies happily advance dystopian visions of the future, wrapped up in smiles and cute puppies, and then they are shocked that people aren’t lovin’ it.
New technologies can certainly confer wonderful benefits, but they’re being built in irresponsible ways that are exacting high costs. It’s not inevitable that technological progress must come with these costs. Innovation need not lead to dystopia.
The law must reign in tech companies because, as these ads show, tech leaders see themselves as building a rosy world . . . but they’re looking through their virtual reality goggles. What the rest of us see is much more frightening.
For more of my thoughts on privacy and tech, check out my book:
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Professor Daniel J. Solove is a law professor at George Washington University Law School. Through his company, TeachPrivacy, he has created the largest library of computer-based privacy and data security training, with more than 180 courses.
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