Some members of the automotive press have been bamboozled by a Toyota press launch and accompanying convention final week. The story was that, to be able to promote the corporate’s electrified choices, Toyota had launched an AI companion named Electra — an AI that instantly went off the rails and commenced speaking about Toyota’s hesitancy to embrace electrical autos.
The press launch, in fact, was faux. The convention featured actual media members watching as actors performed out a script. The AI assistant was a ruse, however the message it delivered was very actual: No matter how a lot Toyota makes use of the time period “electrified,” its hybrids nonetheless burn fuel. But who, if not Toyota, was delivering that message?
That reply got here this previous weekend, when actors and activists The Yes Men posted a full video of the Toyota convention to their YouTube channel. The group later added the undertaking as a case research on its web site, confirming that it was their very own creation.
Other teams have criticized Toyota’s “electrified” branding as deceptive, from EV homeowners teams to the Federal Trade Commission. Yet, after I reached out to The Yes Men, the group claimed that no different events have been concerned on this effort:
I developed the concept for this undertaking after mates advised me concerning the “electrified diversified” marketing campaign Toyota was operating. It felt like such a sick “newspeaky” advert technique, to actually redefine phrases, it was simply ripe for a brandalism takedown.
I requested concerning the social shares as effectively — posts that sprang up on Twitter and Reddit from consumer PersianCowboy — and was advised that they have been fully natural unfold. The consumer behind the account, Hooman Hedayati, was known as “a friend of a friend who works in labor organizing … Hooman posted a vid of it, not coordinated by us.”
It appears The Yes Men pulled off their stunt efficiently, convincing people each out and in of the media that this AI was really constructed by Toyota. Perhaps a few of that believability comes from the stunt’s messaging — on some stage, everyone knows there’s an actual hole between “electrified” and “electric.”
Source: jalopnik.com