Ding dong, turns out privacy isn't quite dead

Ring's Super Bowl misstep finally made the risks of AI cameras clear to Americans, so maybe there is hope for privacy after all

- Nicole Kobie

Alongside the manufactured debate over the Bad Bunny halftime show, the Super Bowl made headlines for another reason: a stream of AI-related ads at roughly $8 million per 30-second slot. Anthropic used its half-minute to brag that it doesn't use ads in its chatbot like rival OpenAI. Chris Hemsworth worried that Alexa was trying to kill him, but got over it when offered a massage. Another company showed how to use an Al assistant to get out of work the next day.

But one ad stood out amid a wave of companies begging you to use their AI, and it wasn't for good reasons. Smart doorbell company Ring - owned by Amazon - used its 30 seconds to let everyone know about a new feature: Search Party.

The ad pulls heavily on the heartstrings. “Pets are family,” it begins, showing a smartphone-style video clip of a puppy being handed to a little girl. Then, Ring notes that ten million dogs go missing each year, and the way we look for them hasn’t changed, the ad declares, showing a series of lost dog posters as though that hasn’t shifted to Facebook and WhatsApp groups these days.