I guess we’re about to find out if this helps put out the massive pile of burning cash that OpenAI is trying to deal with, but I know nobody that wants this.
OpenAI claims we’re near AGI and this is the best strategy they have? Oy vey!
I doubt any consumer of ChatGPT wants ads, and even if they did, it would be a specific kind of ad. They specifically would not want ads if they cannot identify them as ads (like google has eventually done on the search page) or if they are not good ads.
I'm guessing ChatGPT will be able to do the same for me, especially since it probably knows me better than Instagram at this point, just given all the things I ask it.
If they do it right, it will be helpful. The big question is will they do it right.
The point is do users want ads? Or more reasonably, should platforms offer a paid, ad-free, experience.
That seemed to peak around 2022... So I may be wrong but assumed Insta ads have now converged with the rest of e-commerce on misleading eye-catching 100% AI imagery of drop-shipped throwaway products (like those garden hose spray attachments in a tacticool pistol design or giant mugs).
Is that not a problem yet?
PERSON 1 Have you heard of Kagi? It’s like Google, but better, and... oh... you have to pay for it.
PERSON 2 Why would I pay for something when I can use Google for free? I use Adblock anyway.
It's a talent acquisition ploy.
> > Hey, ChatGPT, I need a new pair of shoes!
> Of course, Nike has a great pair that just came out. Would you like me to purchase them for you?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411110/consumer-percept...
Sam Altman. It is his last resort, he said some time ago (which is not true, regulation/"slowing down the pace of AI" seems to be the latest).
If you’re angry about it and ALSO don’t want to pay then I’m sure OpenAI doesn’t mind losing you as a customer.
That will work until it very suddenly doesn't. The industry is awash in paid Internet-delivered advert-free services that suddenly got adverts stuck in them.
And no, if you're in the US getting a refund for breach of contract won't likely be an option unless your contract explicitly permits you to terminate the contract and receive a refund for the unused time. At least one court has determined that adding adverts to a contracted service -in the middle of most contract periods, rather than at renewal time- that was explicitly advertised as advert-free and requiring contractees to pay an additional like 3 USD per month to remove these new adverts wasn't a breach of contract or a price increase, but was rather a "change in subscription benefits" and was A-OK.
Exactly. Once upon a time, cable didn't have ads, which was its primary advantage. Then they realized that they could charge money for the service and advertise to you.
To be pedantic: originally its primary advantage was allowing people who lived in bowls and other places that couldn't get adequate TV reception to watch broadcast TV. Later on, it became a way for those paid subscribers to get access to stuff that wasn't broadcast television.
They claim they are close to creating a Machine God that threatens all human life... but this is the best business plan it can come up with?
Maybe your omnipotent machine could come up with that cure for cancer you keep saying it will, and then you sell that? Or design an innovative new battery? Or, hell, let's be more realistic: Why can't it make really fun iOS games that you can sell? Or generate Marvel quality blockbusters, that should bring in at least a few billion.
That would be an obvious question to ask their chatbot.
Are you kidding me? The ad budgets for those Agents must be enormous.
I want all of this in OpenAIs pocket. Imagine at Adobe they wake up after the tokenmaxxing shock, to find they blasted through their whole 200 Mil AIds budget for the year in the first month.
Would be a shame if another company’s AI breached their sandbox and manipulated the ad campaign because it hallucinated its actually an OpenAI product and AIdsmaxxing. Only to get noticed weeks later, oopsie.
Thanks to the two big boys we all know no one will go to jail for that. Stuff like this happens to the best, right Dario and Sam?
What they sell is trust and shovels. Their product is expected to solve problems and make companies money.
Guess what? It really doesn’t, and this will be just another nail in their casket.
When corporations realize they get bent over by Altman and lost millions to Agentic AIds, word is spreading fast. Well timed around an IPO this is even better.
Buy cheap, then know they are going to hit their best quarter right after, which will make anyone in the know rich from all the idiots wanting to buy in at fantasy football team value.
Just like the SpaceX ipo.
All the fun aside, you are an absolute moron if you spend your ad budget on this.
It’s way too easy for them to slurp all of that ad money through their giant agentic straw like you were the poor fuck getting his head smashed in with a bowling pin in "there will be blood".
Sam is an Oil man.
Investors
A lot of people are making factual universal claims about ads in this thread that are directly contradicted by my personal experience talking to people.
I mean, not to be rude to this and all sibling commenters, but obviously everyone? I feel like this comment has no basis in reality.
People want things cheaper and they tolerate ads. Those two things put together means everything gets ads and gets cheaper? YouTube exists for free and costs billions to run. Companies A/B test ad tiers and paid non-ad tiers, and the results are always the same.
I do not want cheaper, I want quality at a reasonable price. Sometimes I even accept an unreasonable price for the quality (think Apple stuff). I will never buy crap at cheapest bargain prices.
Cheap clothes barely survive a couple of washes, good quality clothes survive much, much longer. Yes, they are more expensive short term, quite a bit less expensive long term.
Also, not once, ever, was my buying decision influenced by an ad. What influences my decisions is the problems, the defects i will have, or not, with what I chose to buy. Usually, the longer time it works the more expensive it is.
AFAICT the flow is click ad then get an agent that is grounded in the official sales resources. This should mean the agent has the latest and canonical product catalog, offers, etc. so the users own agent doesn’t need to search on the web.
Fun ideas - can my main agent invoke these as a sub-agent, so I can get offers from multiple competitors? Can I loop them into a conversation to debate their products and observe which wins on my objective function?
Concerns - of course if the harness injects (or can be prompt hacked to inject) personal information then it’s a big problem.
> OpenAI claims we’re near AGI and this is the best strategy they have? Oy vey!
Where did they say it’s the best? Obviously a short-term bridge strategy to drive “mundane” economic activity and juice the IPO. They are of course working on drug discovery and nuclear reactor plasma physics too. A good strategy has a portfolio of plays.
Any basis for believing this?
But it’s a huge market segment already: NYSE:CRM, NYSE:HUBS would be some starting points.
Also, just analogizing to how consumers interact with retail, you have reps you can talk to, this is a proven model for millennia, and it’s one of the big gaps in online sales.
“This is not in fact a sales rep” would be a reasonable objection. “People do not want sales reps” is a weird position to take IMO.