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Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

sciencemag.org

31–40 of 329 posts

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#31
post #18

Leela : Didn't you have ads in the 21st century? Fry : Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

This is exactly what came to mind when I read the title. Now I need to go and watch Futurama again..

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#32
post #23

Has anyone noticed 2-3 ads per YouTube video (especially midstream)? It’s getting ridiculous. There’s got to be a stop to this madness.

On an Android phone you can use NewPipe app from FDroid repository, it gives you YT without ads (and you can use it in background for free too)

You can do background play in Safari iOS by switching to desktop mode, press play, lock the phone and then click again to play from lock screen / outside safari. Alternatively friendly does also background play.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#33
post #4

Another data point confirming that the advertising industry is actively hostile towards consumers.

Isn't it what it's supposed to be? I mean, their purpose is to persuade me do something that I otherwise wouldn't want to do (usually, to buy some product). How is this not hostile to begin with?

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#34
post #30

All this plus "coaxing knowledge into dream"... Brave New World's hypnopaedia comes to my mind...

Brave New World is set 400 years after the Ford T-Model. A 100 passed since; 1/4th of that book has already become true.

The interesting bit is that if you're part of Brave New World's society, it's not a bad place... it's just stuck in time. There's an original series Star Trek episode where they ask the question: can they disturb a society which hasn't progressed for centuries; their answer was yes. I have mixed feelings about that, but I certainly wouldn't like to see humanity to stop evolving, dreaming, building, and if we keep this up, we might just will.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#35

Has anyone noticed 2-3 ads per YouTube video (especially midstream)? It’s getting ridiculous. There’s got to be a stop to this madness.

I made fuckOff.yt to make people feel better about this. Ublock or pihole are better solutions though

FWIW I have a pihole running on my local, but my Samsung TV still shows YT ads because I cannot disable cdn.samsung.com or the TV will not work, and I think the ads are being served via this domain to my TV....

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#37

Has anyone noticed 2-3 ads per YouTube video (especially midstream)? It’s getting ridiculous. There’s got to be a stop to this madness.

That was absolutely predictable. Just my own anectodal evidence: through my life, ads always became more present, never less. No matter if i.e. ad-financed TV (they started with a single block of 4-5 ads in the late 80s in a standard 90 minute film) to sports (just check a video of a soccer game of the 80s to the how much white space was left on their shirts) the internet etc.

Well, they do become less present once the viewers tire and change medium. So the cycle repeats.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#38
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an 8 yo that _really_ wants to do videos. Just this morning, she helped her mother cook the meal, but she wanted to roleplay as if she was recording a YT video like the ones she watches. It was honestly hilarious - I was HW just across a door - but at the same time frightening when you think about how much this new media permeates our society. P.S.: Having already lost the war with my daughters from a previous…

Kids want to emulate what they see, especially in "fun" entertainment. My grandfather wanted to become a circus clown. My dad talked about western-style indigenous Americans. My He-Man/GI-Joe-drenched childhood was filled with dreams of becoming a warrior/soldier. And today the heroes of "fun" entertainment are YouTubers and Twitch streamers. The permeation you experience has been happening for a long time, only now…

I absolutely never go around pretending like I'm narrating a movie, no siree, not me.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#39
post #23

Has anyone noticed 2-3 ads per YouTube video (especially midstream)? It’s getting ridiculous. There’s got to be a stop to this madness.

On an Android phone you can use NewPipe app from FDroid repository, it gives you YT without ads (and you can use it in background for free too)

just a heads up:

They have their own repository [0] which has faster updates.

[0]: https://newpipe.net/FAQ/tutorials/install-add-fdroid-repo/

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#40
post #6
post #4

Another data point confirming that the advertising industry is actively hostile towards consumers.

Did it need any more data points? It's fairly incredible that it is legal that we are being bombarded 16 out of 24 hours per day with sponsored messages in one form or another. The only medium that is still inviolate is books.

Not so inviolate. There are a number of companies (usually high end designer brands; think Prada and jewelry) that commission authors to make books featuring their products. This has been going on for years, but I don't know the efficacy. Then again, no one really knows the efficacy of any kind of advertising.
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