Hacker News Reader

Comment by arbuge | Hacker News Reader

I find it strange that AI/ML people would avoid "adtech for ethical reasons".

I really wish the websites I visited made better use of my actual history on those sites to tailor relevant ads to my interests. It seems like an ideal application of AI to me. They could do a far better job than serving me the lowest common denominator stuff they keep throwing at me.

My Twitter news feed these days:

* 10% - posts of interest from people I follow, i.e. the stuff I actually go to Twitter for

* 90% - Ads and recommendations of topics to follow that I have zero interest in

If it's going to insist on showing ads and recommending topics of interest, you'd think those could be better personalized, given that Twitter has years of my tweet, reply, and like history to train its AI on.

But no... what I get is crypto ads, Hollywood events, celebrity news, sports news, etc.

View on HN

The problem is that there are a loooot of ethical implication on using your own personal data in the first place, where that goes, who has access to it, how is it handled, and so on and so on. Then advertisements isn't anything but propaganda, which has its own set of implications. And then finally we have the ever present pressure to push more and more ads, thereby making the internet in general worse and worse, so the very field of ads is in itself unethical, as it is destroying the virtual environments we are building.

Also ads != recommendations. In a sense after a while these two are also at odds with each other. Cause there is again, the ever present need to sell you more stuff.

>I find it strange that AI/ML people would avoid "adtech for ethical reasons".

You founded and run an advertising company. Are you taking the piss? Surely you've aware of the ethical issues even if you don't give a fuck about them.

Or are you just saying you categorically expect AI/ML people's interest in the tech and/or money to override the ethics?

Are we doing ad hominem attacks now?

Perhaps we can start from the points I'm making and assess them on their own merits instead?

>Perhaps we can start from the points I'm making and assess them on their own merits instead?

As far as I can tell, the points you made are:

A) It's strange people make moral choices to stay out of advertising.

B) Advertisement could be more targeted.

B is boring and I don't care.

A isn't really a point with merits to be debated.

I enjoy eating meat. But I don't call it "strange" everytime someone turns out to be vegetarian. I understand why they refrain from eating meat. It's not like I disavow the existence of the question of "should we eat meat?". I just disagree.

> ad hominem

Be careful before you start tossing around the Latin, someone might hit you with a 'cui bono?'.

I find it strange that anyone would want companies to accurately model their behaviour and desires so that they might influence you to behave in a way that benefits that company.

The rare time an ad slips past my blocker, (and rarer still when I stop to think about them) I take solace whenever they are irrelevant.

Is it possible for us as people to model our own behaviour so we can influence ourselves in a positive way?

Tracking body weight, wearing an exercise band, recording personal bests, counting calories, keeping a journal, counting number of days sober...

Depends on who defines "positive"?

> I find it strange that anyone would want companies to accurately model their behaviour and desires so that they might influence you to behave in a way that benefits that company.

If the companies in question are billing the ads by impression, as is common, they get paid whether the ad served is relevant or not. If I'm going to be served up native content or ads anyway, I far prefer they be relevant to my interests than they're not.

I'm failing to see how this addresses the concern of corporate entities trying to effectively shape my behaviour, with no regard for my well being, to favour their interests.

I'm not sure what particular interests you have in mind, but if I visit a site I don't have to pay for, subsidized by advertising, and that shows me content and ads relevant and tailored to my interests, I consider my own interests pretty well served.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair

> I far prefer they be relevant to my interests than they're not.

These companies are trying to extract my attention and money -- both limited resources -- and if I have to see ads better ones that I have no interest in, simply out of spite.

> I find it strange that AI/ML people would avoid "adtech for ethical reasons".

I've been doing ML for over 20 years and if it were up to me, advertising would be illegal.

Sounds pretty extreme. Telling anyone about a product you've built is really a form of advertising. I don't see how society advances if your viewpoint were to be implemented and taken to its rational conclusion.

It's almost impossible to be competitive whilst remaining ethical since being unethical provides a massive advantage. In the drive to optimize profits, any hard advantage soon becomes table stakes.

Not to argue for OP, but I think it’s more of a slippery slope thing. A friend of mine does data science at an online bet site but doing more of the number crunching; and from what I gather, the advertising side get close to pandering to gambling addicts

Edit:ignore, op posted. I should stop jumping to answer so soon!

You understand that you're not the one paying for the service, so you don't get a say, right? Even once The Machine has perfect knowledge of you, the ads will not be tailored to your preferences. It will be what an advertiser has paid The Machine to show you.

Actually I do get a say... take the Twitter example. In that case it's resulted in me visiting Twitter far less than I used to.

I may not be voting with my dollars as a user here, but I am voting with my attention span. Dollars are not the only asset of value in play.

> what an advertiser has paid The Machine to show you.

As Cory Doctorow has point out so eloquently in his "enshittification" series, the end point isn't even to the benefit of the advertiser. At the end state, The Machine also have perfect knowledge of the advertiser, and the adtech company can turn the full power of the The Machine to the benefit of itself, extracting value from both the audience and the advertisers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com