Meta's AI optimism ad soundtracked by Bowie's apocalypse song raises eyebrows

Meta released a feel-good advertisement this week touting artificial intelligence's potential to keep humanity connected, featuring heartwarming scenes of families and a Knicks parade. The soundtrack: David Bowie's 1972 track "Five Years," a song fundamentally about civilization on the brink of collapse.

The Artistic Disconnect#

The ad cherry-picks the most uplifting portions of "Five Years," which Bowie wrote as a meditation on Earth entering its final years. The company's spokesperson cited a decades-old Bowie quote about wishing to instill optimism for the future, and Meta did its best to frame the song choice as thematically aligned with the ad's message.

However, those familiar with the track note the stark contrast. As Mick Woodmansey, the original drummer, recalled in a 2018 interview: "We knew it was about the end of the world and pretty depressing. I remember when we recorded it, he was actually in tears." Music critics have observed that "Five Years" depicts "a dystopian nightmare" marked by societal panic and violence.

A Pattern of Contradiction#

Meta is far from alone in this approach. Tech companies have spent years releasing expensive, high-minded advertising to address public skepticism about their work. Anthropic recently released an ad featuring burning buildings and graveyards before pivoting to vague questions about reclaiming humanity. Google promoted an odd spot about a father using AI to ghostwrite his daughter's fan mail to an Olympic hurdler. And in 2022, crypto exchange FTX aired a Super Bowl commercial dismissing every major technological innovation in human history—only to collapse spectacularly nine months later.

The Underlying Problem#

The underlying issue these campaigns reveal: tech companies may struggle to convince the public their products are genuinely beneficial. Instead, they lean heavily on brand-building messaging disconnected from product reality. Taking beloved songs out of context for corporate purposes has long been standard practice in advertising, but critics argue Meta's choice here—coupling apocalyptic imagery with optimistic messaging about connection—suggests either profound tone-deafness or something more calculated. "Hearing [Bowie's] work used for AI just feels especially and specifically nonconsensual," says Jeremy D. Larson, deputy director of Pitchfork.