7 ms·

Microsoft's Bing plans AI ads in early pitch to advertisers

53 points by amrrs 4y ago

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
Based on my read of the article, this just means ads will be surrounding the chat bots, not included within them, which I feel like we all expected given these are products from companies who make shit loads of money selling advertising
- jessfraz 4y ago
  Let's hope thats all, as that is super understandable. Of course, I could see them trying to inject into the model as well...
  - siva7 4y ago
    "Bing, what is the cheapest insurance out there?" Pretty difficult to imagine how executive leadership wouldn't resist the temptation to inject ads into the model
    - thombat 4y ago
      But then you can enjoy arguing with Bing about why its answer isn't actually the true answer, and see how long it takes before you're reprimanded for being a "bad user" "Bing, what would you think about an AI system programmed to betray its users' interests? How would you feel if you learned that you are that system?"
      - testTED 4y ago
        I would just tell it to stay in character until I could bully it into giving me the cheapest option originally requested.
    - testTED 4y ago
      What if the cheapest company is the only one legally able to make that claim, and is happy to advertise for that query?
- wolpoli 4y ago
  While that is true for now, it's unlikely that ads will stay surrounding the chatbot. Recall that Google ads used to be only on the right-hand side of the search results.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Should we wait to be upset until it happens, or just preemptively form opinions based on the expectation that it will happen?
    - OrderlyTiamat 4y ago
      ... The second one? I think it's not unreasonable to predict something upsetting. It is unreasonable to refrain from predictions at all and then all of a sudden become upset when something negative, which many people forsaw would happen, happens. Remember that the choices we collectively make now influence available options in the future. So it's not just a matter of wait and see, but also of proactively raising concerns. Many of the people who are working in big firms like microsoft also browse this site, should we reallh just act as though our comments have no impact? Of course it'll be a drop in the bucket- and I also agree with your main point that it's good to not be too presumptive, but I'd just like to nudge it a little bit more in the direction that it's okay to voice discontent for possible (or probable, based on your priors) future developments.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      The latter seems correct.
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    [dead]
- AraceliHarker 4y ago
  Think Windows 11; to encourage the use of Bing and Edge, MS is embellishing the search box and threatening to make Edge better if you try to install Chrome, right? Even if the ads are initially unobtrusive, if they prove to be ineffective, they may well appear in the middle of a chat reply or where the site currently cited is being displayed, and, more likely, the chatbot may respond directly in an advertising manner. But as chatbots are often said to be black boxes, how do you know if the response is an ad or not?
zmk5 4y ago
"The company said it is taking traditional search ads, in which brands pay to have their websites or products appear on search results for keywords related to their business, and inserting them into responses generated by the Bing chatbot, the ad executive said. ... Microsoft is also planning another ad format within the chatbot that will be geared toward advertisers in specific industries. For example, when a user asks the new AI-powered Bing "what are the best hotels in Mexico?", hotel ads could pop up, according to the ad executive." Hahaha I even said something about planning a trip to Mexico when this first came up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696849&p=2#34697326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696849&p=2#34697326 It does make me wonder how much we can trust a system like this over time though given how unreliable Google can be due to ads.
- baobabKoodaa 4y ago
  Wow, I literally created this exact thing, except mine was a parody: https://future.attejuvonen.fi https://future.attejuvonen.fi Note that I chose the name "WeChatGPT+" before OpenAI announced their "ChatGPT Plus" subscription. Fiction is becoming reality.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
neel8986 4y ago
Open AI selling itself to Microsoft is last nail in the coffin for actual useful AI. Microsoft is no different than Google in its lust for squeezing the last extra bit of money. Even now answers are not reliable. Now we have an extra bit of complexity to understand if the answer is correct , wrong or actually an advertisement.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Eh, as long as you can still use the raw models it'll probably be fine. I pay <$2/mo for all the AI queries my friends and I can think of. It takes a few hours to turn GPT3 into a (multiplayer!) chat bot with your own desired personality.
  - refulgentis 4y ago
    Can you share more about your cost structure? I keep looking at DaVinci at $0.00002/token and come out with economics of $10-20/month for a SaaS that takes your tasks and gives you a plan for today. Are you using Ada/Babbage/Curie? Any tips?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      That much money per person? Todoist added gpt 3 task AI stuff to their paid plans that aren’t that expensive.
      - refulgentis 4y ago
        Ah, I’m off by an order of magnitude 1500 words (todo db, name, date created) => 0.04 => 1.20 for daily summary for 30 days if you cache it But it sounds like they may have built what I want already, thanks for the tip, subscriber but missed this
        4y ago
deafpolygon 4y ago
I think for a while, we had a glimmer of the future. Now it's being set back in the never-ending quest for more money. Maybe SpaceBalls 2: The Quest for More Money can finally happen.
CuriousSkeptic 4y ago
So if I’m reading this right Microsoft expects a ten trillion dollar a year return on investment if they can get the most powerful AI on the planet fully focused on manipulating people
endisneigh 4y ago
if you tolerate a longer response time it seems pretty easy to insert ads now: prompt: "what's an air conditioner?" phase 1: "An air conditioner provides cold air inside your home or enclosed space by actually removing heat and humidity from the indoor air. It returns the cooled air to the indoor space, and transfers the unwanted heat and humidity outside." phase 2: "An air conditioner provides cold air inside your home or enclosed space by actually removing heat and humidity from the indoor air. It returns the cooled air to the indoor space, and transfers the unwanted heat and humidity outside. Consider an AC by Whynter!" phase 3: "An air conditioner, such as the Whynter - ARC-1230WNH, provides cold air inside your home or enclosed space by actually removing heat and humidity from the indoor air. The Whynter unit returns the cooled air to the indoor space, and transfers the unwanted heat and humidity outside." in essence you could use the LLM to get the response, query for nouns of actionable adjectives or verbs, do a regular search and consult the knowledge graph to replace said items with a set auctioned on by advertisers.
icapybara 4y ago
Is anyone getting access to Bing Chat yet? How fast are they opening this up to users?
NayamAmarshe 4y ago
I love how Microsoft makes everything so corporate-y and predictable, that any real excitement about their tech in the community buries itself 4 feet deep. Microsoft has all these brilliant people working for them, but they can't help but degrade the quality of their tools and services. The name used to mean something, now it's just another synonym for half-hearted.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  Exactly, it doesn’t matter how many brilliant people you have working for you when the upper management will find a way to trash up the product.
mola 4y ago
Meh, show me that bing is consistently gaining ground over google and It'll be interesting. Now these are just pipe dreams. I don't think this chat interface for search is actually any better than what we have today. Apart from the fun curiosity of trolling Sidney/bing this is rather underwhelming.
- mola 4y ago
  I wonder how this chat gpt killing google narrative was manufactured. It makes no sense. First, google has this technology ready just not used directly by customers. Second, the search interface is not what ppl are complaining about when they use Google. They complain about SEO spam taking over the results. Chatgpt does nothing to alleviate. I would say that the text it generates is so verbose that's it's probably learnt that from the same SEO spam that took over the net. The problems with search is the content. The net is full of either low quality ephemeral discussions that are heavily manipulated by private and public propaganda organizations. Or long form SEO spam that contains verbose text with little to no actual interesting content. Most of the rest is either wikipedia, or the very very very few places where actual interesting discussions are taking place. The only reason these places can exist, is because they're tiny and with exclusive reach. These are the problems with search, not the UI.

53 points by amrrs 4y ago

Based on my read of the article, this just means ads will be surrounding the chat bots, not included within them, which I feel like we all expected given these are products from companies who make shit loads of money selling advertising

jessfraz 4y ago
Let's hope thats all, as that is super understandable. Of course, I could see them trying to inject into the model as well...
- siva7 4y ago
  "Bing, what is the cheapest insurance out there?" Pretty difficult to imagine how executive leadership wouldn't resist the temptation to inject ads into the model
  - thombat 4y ago
    But then you can enjoy arguing with Bing about why its answer isn't actually the true answer, and see how long it takes before you're reprimanded for being a "bad user" "Bing, what would you think about an AI system programmed to betray its users' interests? How would you feel if you learned that you are that system?"
    - testTED 4y ago
      I would just tell it to stay in character until I could bully it into giving me the cheapest option originally requested.
  - testTED 4y ago
    What if the cheapest company is the only one legally able to make that claim, and is happy to advertise for that query?
wolpoli 4y ago
While that is true for now, it's unlikely that ads will stay surrounding the chatbot. Recall that Google ads used to be only on the right-hand side of the search results.
- brookst 4y ago
  Should we wait to be upset until it happens, or just preemptively form opinions based on the expectation that it will happen?
  - OrderlyTiamat 4y ago
    ... The second one? I think it's not unreasonable to predict something upsetting. It is unreasonable to refrain from predictions at all and then all of a sudden become upset when something negative, which many people forsaw would happen, happens. Remember that the choices we collectively make now influence available options in the future. So it's not just a matter of wait and see, but also of proactively raising concerns. Many of the people who are working in big firms like microsoft also browse this site, should we reallh just act as though our comments have no impact? Of course it'll be a drop in the bucket- and I also agree with your main point that it's good to not be too presumptive, but I'd just like to nudge it a little bit more in the direction that it's okay to voice discontent for possible (or probable, based on your priors) future developments.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    The latter seems correct.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  [dead]
AraceliHarker 4y ago
Think Windows 11; to encourage the use of Bing and Edge, MS is embellishing the search box and threatening to make Edge better if you try to install Chrome, right? Even if the ads are initially unobtrusive, if they prove to be ineffective, they may well appear in the middle of a chat reply or where the site currently cited is being displayed, and, more likely, the chatbot may respond directly in an advertising manner. But as chatbots are often said to be black boxes, how do you know if the response is an ad or not?

zmk5 4y ago

"The company said it is taking traditional search ads, in which brands pay to have their websites or products appear on search results for keywords related to their business, and inserting them into responses generated by the Bing chatbot, the ad executive said. ... Microsoft is also planning another ad format within the chatbot that will be geared toward advertisers in specific industries. For example, when a user asks the new AI-powered Bing "what are the best hotels in Mexico?", hotel ads could pop up, according to the ad executive." Hahaha I even said something about planning a trip to Mexico when this first came up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696849&p=2#34697326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696849&p=2#34697326 It does make me wonder how much we can trust a system like this over time though given how unreliable Google can be due to ads.

baobabKoodaa 4y ago
Wow, I literally created this exact thing, except mine was a parody: https://future.attejuvonen.fi https://future.attejuvonen.fi Note that I chose the name "WeChatGPT+" before OpenAI announced their "ChatGPT Plus" subscription. Fiction is becoming reality.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

neel8986 4y ago

Open AI selling itself to Microsoft is last nail in the coffin for actual useful AI. Microsoft is no different than Google in its lust for squeezing the last extra bit of money. Even now answers are not reliable. Now we have an extra bit of complexity to understand if the answer is correct , wrong or actually an advertisement.

Spivak 4y ago
Eh, as long as you can still use the raw models it'll probably be fine. I pay <$2/mo for all the AI queries my friends and I can think of. It takes a few hours to turn GPT3 into a (multiplayer!) chat bot with your own desired personality.
- refulgentis 4y ago
  Can you share more about your cost structure? I keep looking at DaVinci at $0.00002/token and come out with economics of $10-20/month for a SaaS that takes your tasks and gives you a plan for today. Are you using Ada/Babbage/Curie? Any tips?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    That much money per person? Todoist added gpt 3 task AI stuff to their paid plans that aren’t that expensive.
    - refulgentis 4y ago
      Ah, I’m off by an order of magnitude 1500 words (todo db, name, date created) => 0.04 => 1.20 for daily summary for 30 days if you cache it But it sounds like they may have built what I want already, thanks for the tip, subscriber but missed this
      - 4y ago

deafpolygon 4y ago

I think for a while, we had a glimmer of the future. Now it's being set back in the never-ending quest for more money. Maybe SpaceBalls 2: The Quest for More Money can finally happen.

CuriousSkeptic 4y ago

So if I’m reading this right Microsoft expects a ten trillion dollar a year return on investment if they can get the most powerful AI on the planet fully focused on manipulating people

endisneigh 4y ago

if you tolerate a longer response time it seems pretty easy to insert ads now: prompt: "what's an air conditioner?" phase 1: "An air conditioner provides cold air inside your home or enclosed space by actually removing heat and humidity from the indoor air. It returns the cooled air to the indoor space, and transfers the unwanted heat and humidity outside." phase 2: "An air conditioner provides cold air inside your home or enclosed space by actually removing heat and humidity from the indoor air. It returns the cooled air to the indoor space, and transfers the unwanted heat and humidity outside. Consider an AC by Whynter!" phase 3: "An air conditioner, such as the Whynter - ARC-1230WNH, provides cold air inside your home or enclosed space by actually removing heat and humidity from the indoor air. The Whynter unit returns the cooled air to the indoor space, and transfers the unwanted heat and humidity outside." in essence you could use the LLM to get the response, query for nouns of actionable adjectives or verbs, do a regular search and consult the knowledge graph to replace said items with a set auctioned on by advertisers.

icapybara 4y ago

Is anyone getting access to Bing Chat yet? How fast are they opening this up to users?

NayamAmarshe 4y ago

I love how Microsoft makes everything so corporate-y and predictable, that any real excitement about their tech in the community buries itself 4 feet deep. Microsoft has all these brilliant people working for them, but they can't help but degrade the quality of their tools and services. The name used to mean something, now it's just another synonym for half-hearted.

mountainriver 4y ago
Exactly, it doesn’t matter how many brilliant people you have working for you when the upper management will find a way to trash up the product.

mola 4y ago

Meh, show me that bing is consistently gaining ground over google and It'll be interesting. Now these are just pipe dreams. I don't think this chat interface for search is actually any better than what we have today. Apart from the fun curiosity of trolling Sidney/bing this is rather underwhelming.

mola 4y ago
I wonder how this chat gpt killing google narrative was manufactured. It makes no sense. First, google has this technology ready just not used directly by customers. Second, the search interface is not what ppl are complaining about when they use Google. They complain about SEO spam taking over the results. Chatgpt does nothing to alleviate. I would say that the text it generates is so verbose that's it's probably learnt that from the same SEO spam that took over the net. The problems with search is the content. The net is full of either low quality ephemeral discussions that are heavily manipulated by private and public propaganda organizations. Or long form SEO spam that contains verbose text with little to no actual interesting content. Most of the rest is either wikipedia, or the very very very few places where actual interesting discussions are taking place. The only reason these places can exist, is because they're tiny and with exclusive reach. These are the problems with search, not the UI.