The "bad" is referring to the floppies, not the ad. The ad with the robots at dinner was about buying Maxwell floppies (which were considerably more expensive than no-name floppies) because otherwise the machines might "eat your files". A modern equivalent would be buying a SanDisk SD card over cheaper alternatives.
Semi random fact, but there's actually a Vaporwave artist that used a number of Japanese Maxell advertisements in a distorted/looped manner for the better part of a whole album....
I vaguely remember these but I more clearly remember the Samsung ad which featured a similar looking robot in a dress turning letters on a gameshow, implying that Samsung would still be around even after Vanna White was replaced by a machine. Vanna White sued, claiming a breach of her publicity rights (despite her name, the name "Wheel of Fortune", or her actual likeness not being used) and actually prevailed in court, establishing a precedent in the United States that very broadly protects celebrities' rights to control whether and how they are represented.
It's now 2026 and Vanna White still has not been replaced by robots, but that must have been a successful ad in 1988 for people to remember it decades later.
If you look at the first image in the article, the one with a floppy on a serving tray, it looks like an 8 inch floppy to me. I think the floppy disks in the board room might also be 8 inch floppy disks
Honda was more impressive then with Asimo which was a real robot https://youtu.be/DerM1GNtg5A
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