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At this rate it’s better to start a company and get aquihired vs applying and getting hired. Seems like OpenAI speed ran through the Facebook phase and are out
by CyberMacGyver 1y ago
At this rate it’s better to start a company and get aquihired vs applying and getting hired.
Seems like OpenAI speed ran through the Facebook phase and are out of ideas
- kridsdale3 1y agoAu contraire, based on their recent hires, they're just beginning their Facebook phase. Expect to see a lot of ads 2 years from now, and expect to see a LOT of money being made by the company a year after that. If they can maintain runway until then.
- dfsegoat 1y ago> Expect to see a lot of ads 2 years from now I think I am just slow today - but could you please elaborate?
- joaogui1 1y agoAds on ChatGPT as a way to extract more money from users
- SchemaLoad 1y agoAnd I'm betting they won't be shown as a clearly marked box that says "Ad". It'll be woven directly in the response like normal content.
- jamesbrek98 1y agoThey are next. Perplexity's Comet browser tracks the ** out of you already because ads.
- bobbiechen 1y agoI wrote about this idea here: https://digitalseams.com/blog/the-ai-lifestyle-subsidy-is-going-to-end https://digitalseams.com/blog/the-ai-lifestyle-subsidy-is-go... Quick summary, I believe consumer AI experiences will feature ads because the profit opportunity is too large and company valuations depend on it. The hiring of Fidji Simo (ads at Facebook) at OpenAI + and just this week, Vijaye Raji/Statsig also point that way.
- rjh29 1y agoChatGPT is already returning lists of products (with photos and rating) saying they are impartial, I guess to collect affiliate fees. It's not a big jump to have sponsored products showing up first.
- unyttigfjelltol 1y agoIf folks corrupt the integrity of LLM responses, as it were, they’ll destroy the value proposition. More likely the model will be payment for low friction enablement of transactions rather than overt steering. Pick Door #1: the LLM states the product is fit for purpose. Pick Door #2: the LLM will directly complete the transaction or close to it.
- imiric 1y ago> If folks corrupt the integrity of LLM responses, as it were, they’ll destroy the value proposition. Highly unlikely. Google's SERP is an ad-infested abomination that sometimes shows useful results, and yet people still use Google Search. The same will happen with LLMs, except in far more subtle and insidious ways. Instead of showing you ads directly, they will be naturally interwoven in conversations, suggestions, and generated content. You won't be able to tell whether the content is genuine or promoted, as is common on the web today. The ads will target you more accurately than ever before based on not just the data you've given them, but on the context of the conversation, your surroundings, and any other piece of real-time information they can use to secure a conversion, or to influence your thoughts on a particular matter. You will trust it more than any current ad channel since the AI will be personal, and the tone will be friendly. As with the web, ad-free services will exist, but the only way to escape this entirely will be to use local and self-hosted models.
- baq 1y agoOTOH with the help of local models you should be able to post process any and all content on device to at least highlight, desensationalize if not outright remove quite a lot of those ads, at least until DRM folks lay their hands on it.
- dcchambers 1y agoAre people really going to keep using these AI tools if they start shoving ads down our throats?
- ornornor 1y agoWorked for every tech company so far.
- layoric 1y agoJust by the nature of the product, the manipulation will be a lot more subtle, and likely more successful than traditional ads..
- jonahx 1y agoIt's terrifying.
- apercu 1y agoAnd yet somehow it's even worse.
- ahartmetz 1y agoMaybe something good comes out of the work to only push products that actually exist. /s
- rjh29 1y agoSo far it's about as subtle as a slap to the face. If you set ChatGPT's personality to 'straight-shooting' it starts every answer with "blunt", "tell it like it is" or "unvarnished" and permeates that across the whole reply; by its very nature, it is unable to be subtle about anything.
- CamperBob2 1y agoThat hasn't been true for a while IME. Did you select 'Robot' as the personality?
- homefree 1y agoYeah it could be insanely valuable and it'll give them an advantage by letting them add more features to the free ad supported product to expand their reach and cement their position.
- holoduke 1y agoI see mcps from ebay alike coming to openai.
- morkalork 1y agoWho will pull the ads trigger first, OpenAI or Google I wonder. Whoever leads could lose a lot of users to the other, but they will soon follow.
- vineyardmike 1y agoDefinitely OpenAI. They’re not profitable and their core product is expensive to serve. They also have the disadvantage that their better models and features (eg agents, research, CoT, etc) are more expensive, but are better hooks to prove utility to new users - fundamentally they need a method to cheapen the cost of serving free users better features. Google can afford to see how it shakes out and the impact to OpenAI. OpenAI already exploring and experimenting with different ad modalities privately. They’re also have a much better brand, so they might be able to avoid too much churn of customers.
- kelvinjps10 1y agoGemini can already sponsor other Google products like Google docs sheets and youtube
- vessenes 1y agooAI rev exceeds $1b per month right now.
- gloosx 1y agostill not profitable? All this revenue is burned on compute
- mrklol 1y agoDoesn’t have to be profitable atm
- baq 1y agoIndividual models are probably profitable because why not. Not staying behind is the expensive part.
- gloosx 1y agoExpensive part is providing the services at loss to get the biggest part of the market, which is the current state of affairs. At some point the market leader will emerge and it will price things according to the actual cost of running this thing + markup, and ALL efforts would be going into squeezing as much profit as possible from the leading position. At the same time usability and quality would not be priority anymore. We are enjoying the late-capitalism at it's peak here.
- simianwords 1y agoI predict this won’t be the case. The switching cost to a non Ad LLM is too low for me to be bothered with an ad based LLM. OpenAI must justify ads when its competitors are not sending ads. Why would they? OpenAI models must be so good that it should be worth dealing with ads compared to say Claude or DeepSeek.
- rat9988 1y ago> The switching cost to a non Ad LLM is too low for me to be bothered with an ad based LLM. Provided one with sufficient quality exists.
- simianwords 1y agoYes so what amount of quality are you willing to give up so that you won't be bombarded with ads? Or, what extra money would you pay OpenAI to get a non ad powered LLM model?
- mattmaroon 1y agoThe thing is, ads don’t pay that much. Facebook’s ad revenue works out to about $50/user per year . I probably don’t like FB enough to pay $5/mo for it (and even if I did, all the people I interact with that make it useful wouldn’t) but something that’s a personal assistant? Easy. It’s not hard to imagine ChatGPT just charging.
- andy99 1y agoI suspect that ad powered LLMs will also dramatically sacrifice quality- they are a cost center suddenly, no reason to run a model with 10s or 100s of billions of parameters when some 500m thing will provide a minimally plausible scaffold for ad delivery. Like everything else, most people won't notice a difference and prioritize free over paid.
- pjc50 1y agoThat requires you to be able to notice the ads.
- bilekas 1y agoFrom my perspective, I'm so tired of ads being the main source of revenue on the internet. If they're added to chatgpt for example I will most definitely be moving to another that has no ads. Probably I don't represent the masses but I hate this rush to the bottom with adverts.
- baq 1y agoAds are a way to get money from users who don’t want to pay with their money. You can’t beat free on price and crucially you can’t beat free on convenience - paying even 1 cent above free introduces complexity and friction. Solve this and you’ll solve the ad problem, but I’m afraid it isn’t possible because money involves controls and regulations which you can’t weasel out of and not end up in jail.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- aucisson_masque 1y agoWhat about tiers like YouTube lite where you pay and you still see advertisement ? How does that fit in your price model because to me it makes no sense at all yet people buy that. Same for Netflix tier with ads.
- baq 1y agoThere's money to take, maybe, so why not take it.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- wickedsight 1y agoI was watching a TV show on Prime for the past months. They introduced ads last month and I instantly returned to piracy for this specific show. I hope my main steaming service (for local content) doesn't get the same idea. I'd happily pay extra if they add 4k, but I don't like being extorted into paying (over 50%) more for the same service.
- verzali 1y agoI do what I can to waste OpenAI cash by getting the free version of chatgpt to write dirty limericks about Sam Altman.
- DrScientist 1y agoI do wonder whether we will switch back to ads or there is/will be a big switch to the subscription type model. Would you trust output from OpenAI which is sponsered? I mean it's bad enough now in the ad space where they are increasingly trying to make the ads look more like content - imagine that in woven into your ChatGPT output? The younger generation are quite used to subscription models - netflix, spotify, various gaming platforms etc. Perhaps access just becomes part of your internet access bundle.
- torginus 1y agoThe problem with charging more for subscription is they have like 5 competitors who can give you the same thing, and charging more is giving them an open opportunity to trade revenue for market share if you undercut them. I think they're realizing what most capitalists have realized - if you don't own the whole value chain, you don't own the value. I bet Alex won't have a dropdown to switch to Claude Sonnet for very long.
- raxxorraxor 1y ago> if you don't own the whole value chain, you don't own the value. Good rule. Just like using a service based AI instead of a self-hosted one if you are a developer or artist.
- hdjrudni 1y ago> I bet Alex won't have a dropdown to switch to Claude Sonnet for very long. > We plan to continue service for existing users, but will stop new downloads of the app on October 1st. As long as you have the app installed, our plan is to continue serving you. But there won’t be any new features released. Sounds like there won't be an Alex at all after very long.
- DrScientist 1y ago> if you don't own the whole value chain, you don't own the value. Not sure that's right - the critical part to own is the customer interaction ( or have an monopoly for your part ) Supermarkets don't need to have their own farms.
- seunosewa 1y agoTheir non-profit status may be an impediment to maximising profits.
- clownpenis_fart 1y ago[dead]
- jamesbrek98 1y agoOpenAI already runs ads on Instagram for its ChatGPT app, advertising what it can do for you and your day to day things.
- Mistletoe 1y agoI love your username. So many good memories from that show.
- 999900000999 1y agoFrom what I've seen you still need to be well connected. I have at least one more idea in me and invest my own money to make it happen, but I don't think I'll have a 2 billion dollar exit.
- LewisVerstappen 1y ago> At this rate it’s better to start a company and get aquihired vs applying and getting hired. Then do it. Since when did HN become like Reddit? Always negative about everything? Feels like all the losers from Reddit have somehow migrated here.
- blitzar 1y agoGiven employees (especially at higher levels) of companies wouldnt pass their own "interview" process its a legitimate tactic to getting into the buzier companies these days