521–530 of 763 posts
I was asking it what type of Teflon tape to use for a project, and it "helpfully" gave me sponsored links to purchase the Teflon tape. (I never asked for links, I strictly asked it which to use)
Not sure why this is a headline; ChatGPT served me ads a few weeks ago. I was asking it what type of Teflon tape to use for a project, and it "helpfully" gave me sponsored links to purchase the Teflon tape. (I never asked for links, I strictly asked it which to use)
It's gonna be hilarious aside from the modest extra CO2 it produces
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> most normal people don't know what Claude or Gemini are That's actually changed a while ago.
Chatgpt is a proprietary eponym[1], like kleenex, or Google for search. That's a relatively strong attractor based on their first mover status. I nevertheless use tissues, and search engines like brave search, sometimes duckduckgo, and claude or openrouter for my LLM models. I think there are too many good alternatives for Chatgpt to turn the screws too hard on their users, but we'll see where it settles out. As usua…
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> So they’ll need to tread very, very carefully to introduce it without alienating customers. every single platform since the 1990's has introduced ads. My kids find it totally normal to have them. Believe me, if you train (!) people to accept ads, they will soon think it's normal. And besides, if ChatGPT goes with ads, Google will follow directly. So the users won't have the choice anymore. But ok, if I have to pay…
Don't worry, you'll pay for the service and get ads. It's the inevitable end-state of these kinds of services.
First no ads. Then ad free if you pay extra. Then “ad free” except half the shows have a “this show requires ads” bs and still have ads. Scummy flea ridden advertisers at their core.
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>Doesn’t anyone think this is really, really bad idea? I mean I do. And you do. Probably a lot of people in this thread. I felt that way about Netflix doing it, but they did and the world just moved on. I think you're right that these ads will be, in a sense, worse, but not by the metrics that matter to OpenAI.
> about Netflix doing it, but they did and the world just moved on I think the main challenge here is that Netflix works around one of many ways to access entertainment. So if one service starts to show recommendations in that limited context of user data they collect - it's still has negative potentials but it's easier to regulate and there are alternatives. In the case of LLMs, we have service that are aiming to re…
Most people already experience the internet as an integrated browser+search engine (and often, OS) experience from a single advertising company, Google, and it has been this way for over a decade.
>And the result is: ad-infused, tweaked to align with investor priorities, censored by the current politics of wherever the company is based service machinery that's constantly extracting personal information so it can learn better ways to refocus its priorities.
Exactly.
This is not to say I like this outcome, but how is it not massive hyperbole to invoke apocalyptic sci-fi? I expect we'll plod along much as before: some people fiercely guarding their personal info, some people taking a "privacy is dead anyway" approach, most people seeing personal computers as a means to some particular ends (scrolling social feeds and watching Netflix) that are incompatible with thinking too hard about the privacy and information environment implications.
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what's with all the naysaying? It's HN in 2025 and you think a company the size of OpenAI can't afford to build ads?
Except OpenAI’s value is overinflated by an economic bubble. They don’t have the manpower or resources to effectively implement an ad network on the scale they’d need to become profitable. Why are you insisting we keep the conversation positive?
I honestly don’t think open ai has the maturity or discipline for long-term viability, but their operating expenses for a week would eclipse the annual payroll required to hire a large corporate infrastructure that may be the best shot they have at transitioning from a company operating on hope and buzz to one that actually makes a few bucks. I’ll eat my hat if they become the next Google, but they didn’t pull the playbook out of thin air.
- ~1 billion users in just 3 years - Extremely personal data on users - Novel way of introducing and learning more about sponsored products - Strong branding for non-techie people (most normal people don't know what Claude or Gemini are) - An app that is getting more and more addictive/indispensable I think OpenAI is going to kill it in ads eventually. This is why Meta and Google went all in on AI. Their lucrative di…
“Google Gemini” is the No 2 ranked app in the Apple App Store (behind ChatGTP) and has been for some time
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You know, I thought stories of law enforcement and the military targeting people using commercially collected data, effectively skirting the sanity boundaries we applied to surveillance, would raise a little bit of awareness in the US. It didn’t. Then when the political scene got really into deliberately targeting political opposition, I thought that might raise more eyebrows about all of this data being out there, b…
It’s not that they don’t care - the current administration is targeting people that they specifically don’t like. And Trump has a cult of personality where many Republican politicians are literally afraid for their lives if they stand against him because they get death threats. Romney said other Republican politicians won’t stand against Trump because they can’t afford security like he can. Majorie Green Taylor said…