The new Ipad Pro stands out for its finesse and its OLED screen. It will be available in stores from this Wednesday, May 15.
To accompany its launch, Apple had imagined an advertisement whose disclosure left no one indifferent.
Titled “Crush!” (crush), we saw a hydraulic press crushing a whole bunch of objects: pots and tubes of paint, a metronome, a piano, a jukebox, a mannequin, a sculpture, cameras, books and many other objects…
Then the press stood up and unveiled the iPad Pro. In the background, the song by Sonny & Cher “All I ever need is you“…
Faced with the unanimous reactions when it was revealed last week, particularly in the world of creation, Apple finally apologized, and decided not to broadcast the ad on television as originally planned.
It is perhaps the British director of Indian origin Asif Kapadia, who was able to best express what artists may have felt in the face of such violence: “it is the most honest metaphor of what tech companies do to the arts, to artists, musicians, creators, writers, filmmakers: pressuring them, using them, not paying them well, taking everything and then saying that it was created by them.”
This episode is reminiscent of another: in 2015, during the launch of Apple Music, Taylor Swift announced that she was going to refuse to allow her album 1989 to be accessible on the streaming platform. Apple had in fact planned a three-month free trial during which intellectual property rights would not be paid to performers, authors, composers and producers.
In an open letter published on Tumblr, she summarized her position as follows: “We are not asking you for free iPhones. Don’t ask us to provide you with our music without compensation.”
Apple had already had to reverse its decision by finally deciding to pay royalties during the trial period.
Behind the emotion of the artists, the elephant in the room is generative AI.
On February 28, during Apple’s annual meeting with investors, Norges Bank Investment Management and Legal & General, respectively the 8th and 10th largest shareholders of the company, supported a resolution calling on the firm to clarify its ethical vision of the question.
Their concern was stated as follows: “In our opinion, AI systems should not be trained on copyrighted works, or on the voices, likenesses and performances of professional artists, without transparency, consent and compensation for creators and rights holders. We also believe that AI should not be used to create literary material or to replace or supplant the creative work of professional writers. »
Apple then invited other shareholders to reject this motion, considering it “too imprecise and too vague in the interpretation that can be made”.
In other words: “move around, there is nothing to see”
So yes, there are obviously leaders at Apple for whom the light has not reached all levels. But above all, the violence of the sequence says a lot about the social irresponsibility of the firm… hoping that it is not the sign of an illness which would affect the entire sector of tech companies!
Iconographie : “crush”, iPad Pro ad © Apple
After working as an international banker for emerging countries, Laurent Lascols became global head of country risk / sovereign risk (from 2008 to 2013) then global director of public affairs (from 2014 to 2019) for Societe Generale. Since early 2023, he is managing partner at ARISTOTE, an advisory firm and training organization dedicated to corporate social responsibility, sustainable finance and impact finance.