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I was recently thinking about going back to the idea of Butter (https://butter.sonnet.io https://butter.sonnet.io) and expanding it a little bit. Can we build a

I was recently thinking about going back to the idea of Butter (https://butter.sonnet.io https://butter.sonnet.io) and expanding it a little bit. Can we build a proof-of-concept of a universal ad blocker™ running on your phone? It uses AI (it's very fancy): - model 1: use screen capture to detect ads - model 2: once an ad is detected, hide it in a context specific way (e.g. if it's the native YT app, find and click the skip button, if it's a podcast, seek past the sponsored segment etc...) both model 1 and model 2 gradually learn, perhaps share knowledge between users, in a manner similar to blocklists. Perhaps in 3-5 years our devices (mobile G/CPUs and batteries) will get powerful enough to support this. Imagine the possibilities! It's a ridiculous idea. I also think it's possible we'll see something like this in the future, because it feels like a simpler solution than dealing with the systemic issues related to advertising.

happybuy 3y ago
Why stop there? Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to the restrictions that are placed on the pass-through video feed by Apple in visionOS. If these OS restrictions were removed it could be technically feasible.
- rpastuszak 3y ago
  > Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising. I need to go to bed, but... I used to run an AR startup (pre-pokemon go/AR craze) and I played with an idea like this. What works better: polarised sunglasses and shitty LCD screen ads*! * you might wanna tilt your head by 90deg from time to time

happybuy 3y ago

Why stop there? Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to the restrictions that are placed on the pass-through video feed by Apple in visionOS. If these OS restrictions were removed it could be technically feasible.

rpastuszak 3y ago
> Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising. I need to go to bed, but... I used to run an AR startup (pre-pokemon go/AR craze) and I played with an idea like this. What works better: polarised sunglasses and shitty LCD screen ads*! * you might wanna tilt your head by 90deg from time to time