GM’s Super Bowl ad featuring despondent robot draws criticism

DETROIT (AP) – A Super Bowl ad showing a quality-obsessed General Motors Corp. robot jumping off a bridge in a dream sequence after screwing up on the job is drawing criticism from a suicide prevention group.
But the world’s largest automaker is defending the ad and says it has no plans to change the spot, which is making the rounds online and is featured on GM’s Web site after making its broadcast debut during Sunday’s big game.
The ad, called “Robot,” opens with the machine dropping a screw while working on a GM assembly line. It’s kicked out of the plant and finds work waving a “Condos for Sale” sign and holding up a speaker at a fast-food joint, all the while appearing saddened by watching shiny, new GM vehicles drive by.
As the Eric Carmen song “All By Myself” plays in the background, the despondent robot leaps off a bridge into the water below, only to wake up inside the darkened factory _ waking up from its dream.
The New York-based American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says it started getting complaints the day after the ad aired and as of Thursday had fielded more than 250 e-mails or calls. It wants GM to pull the ad from its Web site, try to get it off video-sharing Web sites such as YouTube and apologize.
The ad is the latest from the Super Bowl to come under fire. Earlier this week, a commercial for Snickers candy bars was benched after complaints that it was homophobic.