THe "leak" is just Sam Altman trying to put out the "OpenAI is spending a gazillion $$ and has no path to profitability" fires.
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
651–660 of 763 posts
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#652- ~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…
> most normal people don't know what Claude or Gemini are In think the point is that they don’t need to know what Gemini is, they just need to know Google, which they most definitely do. IMO ads rollout won’t be as simple as you’re describing it. A lot of people have switched from Google search to AI specifically because it isn’t filled with SEO, ad filled nonsense. So they’ll need to tread very, very carefully to in…
Google had a good 10 year run, where the ads were genuinely useful, until the need of the public markets required and lack of competition allowed them to enshitify the experience to the current state.
I hope the same fate does not await ChatGPT but in the mean time I expect it to be a pretty good experience at first.
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#653- ~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…
Matt Levine once wrote about OpenAI's business model:
------------------------------------
There’s a famous Sam Altman interview from 2019 in which he explained OpenAI’s revenue model [1] :
> The honest answer is we have no idea. We have never made any revenue. We have no current plans to make revenue. We have no idea how we may one day generate revenue. We have made a soft promise to investors that once we’ve built this sort of generally intelligent system, basically, we will ask it to figure out a way to generate an investment return for you. [audience laughter] It sounds like an episode of Silicon Valley, it really does, I get it. You can laugh, it’s all right. But it is what I actually believe is going to happen.
It really is the greatest business plan in the history of capitalism: “We will create God and then ask it for money.” Perfect in its simplicity. As a connoisseur of financial shenanigans, I of course have my own hopes for what the artificial superintelligence will come up with. “I know what every stock price will be tomorrow, so let’s get to day-trading,” would be a good one. “I can tell people what stocks to buy, so let’s get to pump-and-dumping.” “I can destroy any company, so let’s get to short selling.” “I know what every corporate executive is thinking about, so let’s get to insider trading.” That sort of thing. As a matter of science fiction it seems pretty trivial for an omniscient superintelligence to find cool ways make money. “Charge retail customers $20 per month to access the superintelligence,” what, no, obviously that’s not the answer.
------------------------------------
I agree with the sibling commenter that this move is a sign of OpenAI's weakness. If you really believe you have a superintelligent machine-god (or will have one soon) then "run ads when people talk to it" is not the business model you pick.
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
And just like all meme stocks and so-called stablecoins, it'll work until it doesn't. The fall will be dramatic.
it won’t be. the same sane argument was that “robotaxi” fall will be dramatic but it wasn’t, Musk, like Trump, is a master at manipulating masses and when thing du jour inevitably fails he’ll just pivot on an earnings call (and on “X” along the way) how “thing du jour is yesterday’s news” and he’s onto “next big thing” - data center on Jupiter that will replace all earth’s data centers or something like that :)
“Master at manipulating masses” is something you have to tell yourself when people you don’t like are highly successful, I guess.
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#655Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#656Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going to https://gemini.google.com works fine for me when not logged in. It might be doing some sort of reputation check on your browser/IP to decide whether it requires a login or not. edit: sure enough, while using Tor or a well known VPN IP, Gemini requires I login.
That does not match what I see, gemini.google.com always present me a login page and it did the same for my colleague at work.
I just tried it, I was able to use it without login. But the thinking model isn't available.
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#657Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt anyone would say that given that they got into ads years before giving people the option to pay.
But the same logic applies. Youtube is not profitable without ads and would shut down.
If ChatGPT and AI is "just" supposed to be Youtube, sure. ChatGPT wasn't supposed to be just YouTube.
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, it’s essentially an admission of failure. I think the people who were expecting AI to improve exponentially are disappointed by its current state, where it’s basically just a useful tool to assist workers in some highly specific fields.
> it’s essentially an admission of failure A multibillion dollar failure is fine by investors. Altman hasn’t been peddling the AGI BS to them. That’s aimed at the public and policymakers.
Is a trillion dollar failure okay with investors?
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know it's a joke, but the ads will surely be much more stealthy than that. Advertisers are gonna want to drive people to products and websites without it being clear it's actually an ad, like subtle ranking things differently, or trying to nudge users into some direction.
Economically, I don't think that makes sense. Having a call to action that is just clicking a link is much more likely to be taken than a subtle suggestion. The former will be able to make more sales from the same ad spend which will allow them to bid higher on ads, out competing subtle ads.
Well, product placement in movies is also hard to track and also very popular.
Re: Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
#660I knew it was coming but I didn't expect my post to age so fast! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46027642 Less than a week a go I praised AI chatbots for their lack of intrusive content. It's the number one reason I'm a plus subscriber to ChatGPT. I hope they won't force me to seek out an alternative LLM experience.