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How ChatGPT serves ads

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Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#341

Post by etruong42 »

Hasz wrote: post #312

Ads is v1 of how-do-I-make-money. I wrote about this a while ago privately, but IMO LLMs are about to be on par with the printed word for distributing low-cost, high-impact propaganda. It has never been cheaper or easier to influence millions of people, either deniably-subtly (though omission, selective results, "hallucinations" etc) or via sock puppetting. If I am a government, there is nothing more valuable to me t…

> It has never been cheaper or easier to influence millions of people, either deniably-subtly (though omission, selective results, "hallucinations" etc) or via sock puppetting.

I would argue it is already happening. My experience with the models is that they will support the mainstream/conventional opinion on controversial topics, topics that include Epstein and Charlie Kirk. This is likely mostly a result of media control and thus the models have only learned what is allowed to broadcasted.

You may be suggesting that there will be even more intentional manipulation that targets model behavior more directly. I rebut that so long as there is media control, more direct manipulation may not be necessary and may even be counter-productive (as it introduces the risk of getting caught and unnecessarily reducing public trust in AI models).

P.S. Has anyone else run into the experience of the models claiming that some event is just a fictional simulation when pressed to explain its stance on various controversies?

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#342

Post by idiotsecant »

fluoridation wrote: post #300
idiotsecant wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a thin layer of high functioning sociopath at the top of all human social structures. Never trust anyone who wants to lead at that level. You have more in common with a colossal squid at the bottom of the deepest trench than you do with that kind of human.

Nah. People are just more adaptable to their circumstances than you think. Something I think about from time to time is sacking during war, where soldiers are allowed to do as they please with a conquered civilian population. If I applied your same reasoning, I'd have to conclude that on average there's a great number of people who are not committing atrocities just because of the fear of repercussions. What I think…

There are lots of soldiers that don't rape and pillage when afforded the option to. There are plenty of good leaders who aren't sociopaths, it's just a career limiting feature.

There are, in fact, a substantial proportion of us that aren't doing horrible things because they are comfortable enough that risking that comfort is worse than what they would gain.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#343

Post by suttontom »

kingstnap wrote: post #105
Aurornis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads are for the free tier and new $8 ad-supported plan. The revenue from a few ads on the free tier in exchange for limited queries to GPT-5.3 is negligible compared to what they pull in from API costs and the subscription plans. This looks like a play to justify the existence of the previously money-losing free tier as they go into an IPO. Throw some ads in there to make it closer to a neutral on the balance she…

The real question is what do you get out of advertising to people who don't have any money? Kinda squeezing blood from a stone. You'd be better off saying you use those people to A/B test changes and filling idle GPU batches while giving paying customers a more consistent experience.

This is like asking why you'd advertise on YouTube to people who aren't paying for YouTube Premium.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#346

Post by ProfessorLayton »

Hasz wrote: post #326
Hasz wrote: post #312

Ads is v1 of how-do-I-make-money. I wrote about this a while ago privately, but IMO LLMs are about to be on par with the printed word for distributing low-cost, high-impact propaganda. It has never been cheaper or easier to influence millions of people, either deniably-subtly (though omission, selective results, "hallucinations" etc) or via sock puppetting. If I am a government, there is nothing more valuable to me t…

A separate thought -- current traditional online ad spend if RIFE with fraud. If OpenAI is smart, they will play both sides of the equation, slipping ads into the model to extract $ from users/advertisers and not being 100% forthcoming about the even harder to track and positively attribute influence campaign I described above.

While I agree that there's a lot of fraud in online advertisement (As someone who's spent modestly on it), ultimately what advertisers are looking for is positive ROI, and how it compares to other spend.

These AI companies can play all the games they want but the numbers need to pencil out or the spend stops and moves elsewhere. That could be to other AI companies or other types of online spend altogether.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#347

Post by pbasista »

Aurornis wrote: post #288
pbasista wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time this comes up there are comments assuming that ads are being injected into the normal plans No. The distinction between the unpaid vs. cheap vs. expensive plans is irrelevant here. The main controversial point about this topic is to include ads in the output of an LLM-backed AI tool responses. It does not matter at all in which tier it occurs. The discussion is about the fact that it occurs in the first…

> The main controversial point about this topic is to include ads in the output of an LLM-backed AI tool responses. Except the article very clearly explains that the ads are separate from the AI responses.

> the ads are separate from the AI responses

Ok. But that is in my opinion a distinction without a difference.

It does not matter whether the ads are built by the AI itself and seamlessly embedded into the regular responses. Or just made separately and placed into the same window as the AI's output.

The bulk of the controversies in relation to doing this are still roughly the same, whatever the origin of the ads may be.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#348

Post by customguy »

Antibabelic wrote: post #281
customguy wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one does though. These issues are solely created by humans, so of course humans can solve them, that's not even a question. People who care need to keep speaking up and reaching out to each other, get together; and by doing so expose the people who don't care, or actively are against the general welfare of humans, like rocks on the beach when the tide recedes. It takes so much work, so much criminal energy, so m…

People getting to know each and working together to genocide another group of people that's slightly different from them does indeed have many precedents in history. The problem with your idea is that you see "humans" as some kind of abstract unified whole. People care about their peers far more than they do about "humans" in the abstract. When you're a powerful venture capitalist, these peers are other venture capit…

> The problem with your idea is that you see "humans" as some kind of abstract unified whole.

No, I don't, which greatly goes together with that not following from anything I said. I simply care about humans that are not predators way more than predators.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#349

Post by fluoridation »

idiotsecant wrote: post #342
fluoridation wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. People are just more adaptable to their circumstances than you think. Something I think about from time to time is sacking during war, where soldiers are allowed to do as they please with a conquered civilian population. If I applied your same reasoning, I'd have to conclude that on average there's a great number of people who are not committing atrocities just because of the fear of repercussions. What I think…

There are lots of soldiers that don't rape and pillage when afforded the option to. There are plenty of good leaders who aren't sociopaths, it's just a career limiting feature. There are, in fact, a substantial proportion of us that aren't doing horrible things because they are comfortable enough that risking that comfort is worse than what they would gain.

>There are lots of soldiers that don't rape and pillage when afforded the option to.

Sure, but you don't get stuff like the rape of Nanking from just a few handfuls of lunatics. It can't be simply explained as "oh, armies are just manned by 80% psychopaths, even after drafts". There's something about the extremeness of the situation that pushes an otherwise normal person towards abnormal behavior, even while some of his comrades refrain from engaging in such acts.

>There are, in fact, a substantial proportion of us that aren't doing horrible things because they are comfortable enough that risking that comfort is worse than what they would gain.

It's easy to say that without having gone through those experiences (either as a soldier or as a CEO).

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