No, that’s not Alexander Skarsgård messing around with Jony Ive and OpenAI’s inaugural ChatGPT hardware device.
No, that’s not Alexander Skarsgård messing around with Jony Ive and OpenAI’s inaugural ChatGPT hardware gadget.
As if OpenAI wasn’t already embroiled in enough drama surrounding the Super Bowl and its ads, as the match neared its end, news of a “leaked” advertisement circulated, which was actually fabricated; it was merely a hoax. Images from a now-removed Reddit thread narrated the story of a disgruntled employee who, while lamenting how upset they were because the advertisement they had contributed to wasn’t aired, inadvertently released the full advertisement video, seemingly featuring Murderbot actor Alexander Skarsgård with what appeared to be OpenAI’s initial hardware product, depicted as a sleek orb accompanying some wraparound earbuds.
OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman shared his thoughts on X via a tweet dismissing the claim as “fake news,” while OpenAI representative Lindsay McCallum Rémy stated, “this is completely fictitious.”
Upon closer inspection, the fact that the account that “discovered” the advertisement was freshly created was surprisingly opportune. The “wineheda” Reddit account associated with the original post has since been removed, but an inquiry through the Internet Archive reveals that just a year prior, the individual behind it was trying to expand their bookkeeping business in Santa Monica — transitioning to creating advertisements for OpenAI and Jony Ive just in time for Super Bowl LX would be quite the drastic career change.
Whoever orchestrated this prank had clearly spent time on it and tackled disseminating their narrative from various angles. Max Weinbach posted screenshots of an email he had received a week earlier suggesting promotion for a tweet about an OpenAI hardware teaser advertisement featuring Alexander Skarsgård, which allegedly came with a legitimate payment of $1,146.12. Additionally, AdAge reporter Gillian Follett mentioned earlier today, a “fake headline” attributed to her, misrepresenting a story about OpenAI altering its Super Bowl advertisement, while OpenAI CMO Kate Rouch noted an “entirely fabricated website” attempting to reinforce the same narrative.
