7 ms·

Meta will listen into AI conversations to personalize ads

210 points by Bender 1y ago

msukhareva 1y ago
I am not even surprised. Eventually all this company will stop talking about AGI and curing cancer and will just turn LLMs into another way to sell stuff to people, just like OpenAI already did
lerrin 1y ago
Let it begin
everdrive 1y ago
As will all LLMs eventually if they're not already? One more service online to assiduously avoid. Or maybe just game? Get in an unprotected web browser and complain to the LLM how you just never have any money and can't make ends meet, and get better pricing? Might be too much effort vs. simply not buying stuff in the first place.
- Sharlin 1y ago
  More likely you'll start getting ads trying to con you into taking payday loans or investing to crypto or Ponzi schemes or whatever.
- captainkrtek 1y ago
  Ads will just be payday loans, job boards, etc.
- otikik 1y ago
  "Re-structure your debt!" "Buy now pay later!"
- Angostura 1y ago
  I still have faith that Apple won’t do this with Apple Intelligence
  - willvarfar 1y ago
    The App Store is full of paid search result placements etc. Search for app x and first result is competitor y etc. It's a slippery slope.
    - naikrovek 1y ago
      > It's a slippery slope. it's really not. each individual step down that staircase is considered and intentional. The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy.
      - RandomBacon 1y ago
        I think you left off the "/s" Yes, they will consider and intentionally take steps to make more money.
        naikrovek 1y ago
        no /s. it is literally a logical fallacy.
      - sumeno 1y ago
        Slippery slope arguments are not always logical fallacies. Just dismissing any argument about a slippery slope as a fallacy is lazy (as is quoting logical fallacies in any argument)
        naikrovek 1y ago
        > Slippery slope arguments are not always logical fallacies. show me a slippery slope that is not a series of deliberate decisions, then. i've never seen one. every single step down that slope required someone who wanted to go further down the slope and took the action(s) required to go further. there is no involuntary sliding down slopes here.
- kode95 1y ago
  > As will all LLMs eventually Proton has made an AI chatbot with an extreme focus on privacy: https://lumo.proton.me https://lumo.proton.me
  - RandomBacon 1y ago
    Proton had a sale and I wanted to try their services out, but they would not let me register while on Mullvad's VPN. Their support said to not use a VPN when registering. I personally do not trust Proton.
    - Night_Thastus 1y ago
      This seems like a bit of a silly reason to not trust a company. There's a small mountain of companies that won't let you register if you're behind a VPN, or using a less-common e-mail provider (ie: protonmail). It's annoying but it's a bog standard technique for avoiding spam or fraud.
      - RandomBacon 1y ago
        I can buy expensive things to have delivered to a vacant house and run off in the night if I used a stolen credit card on a VPN, but a cheap digital service that can be cut off at anytime if there's fraud, can't handle a VPN.
      - overfeed 1y ago
        > This seems like a bit of a silly reason to not trust a company. A self-professed privacy-focused company that won't let privacy-conscious customers sign up does look a little sus.
        ranger_danger 1y ago
        Is there perhaps some type of KYC law where they operate? Either way I would think it would be best to explain right there on the page, why they can't do it.
freedomben 1y ago
Not surprised, but still disappointed. I would have bought some of the glasses a while ago, but haven't purely because of privacy concerns. At this point the big tech ship is so massive that I don't see anything short of a (metaphorical) nuke stopping it. Given how cozy they all are with the current administration, I also don't expect any hindrances for at least a few more years, by which time this will all be even more heavily entrenched.
jonplackett 1y ago
How can anyone be surprised by this?
- jimt1234 1y ago
  Exactly. And this is what curation has always been about - not giving you (the customer/user) what you want, rather, giving you what we want.
hereme888 1y ago
Are they the first among Big Tech to publicly indicate this?
outside2344 1y ago
I think this is the most positive thing that could happen. What's more likely is that the whole response stream is manipulated to sell us things (ideas, products).
- pyrale 1y ago
  > What's more likely is that the whole response stream is manipulated to sell us things (ideas, products). Even then, you still want additional advertising, so that people believe the manipulated responses are genuine.
- AJ007 1y ago
  All of the future billion dollar model training runs might be for conversion rate optimization. User mentions they didn't sleep well. Model delivers jarring information right before user's bed time. Model subtly suggests other sleep disruptive activities, user receives coupons for free coffee. User converts for ad for sleeping medication. (This is already happening, intentionally or not) Notably the open source models OpenAI released right before gpt5 are likely good enough to be substitutes for 95% of typical ChatGPT use cases.
tempodox 1y ago
Just in case anyone was still in denial about Meta merely being facebook by another name. Everyone knows facebook is an ad company and as mercenary as they come. What was that renaming good for when they’re constantly reminding everyone that they haven’t changed one bit?
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45444896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45444896
yoyohello13 1y ago
I often think back to that 'dystopia simulator' LLM on HN years ago that would always plug an ad for Taco Bell or something after it's responses. That always seemed like the most plausible end game for all this stuff unfortunately.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  Just to pile on, an ad for literally taco bell is kinda the least worst case. Subtle additions about jews being evil or taxes being immoral seem far worse.
  - FloorEgg 1y ago
    Or what about a persistent influence towards a victim mindset? Convincing people to be dissatisfied with everything outside their control and sabotage everything within their control. That sounds like a recipe for hell
    - lucasban 1y ago
      Why not both?
    - bccdee 1y ago
      I don't see why chatbot platforms would ever be interested in promoting such a bias. Seems like it would just engender dissatisfaction with the status quo that benefits the tech oligarchs who own those platforms in the first place.
      - FloorEgg 1y ago
        You don't already see this playing out with social media? There are so many paths towards this type of outcome: - eliciting negative emotions is one of the most effective ways to get and keep peoples attention. - foreign states buy platforms to sabotage population of rival states - costs of chatbots drop by orders of magnitude, making profiting off them less important Those three points alone cover a wide area of potential negative outcomes... I'm not anti AI, but I'm trying to stay eyes wide open. AI can drive a lot of good, but to me the biggest risk is a population of people sleepwalking into being subjected to whatever the AI wants to make them think. I try to focus my efforts where I can, to influence an outcome where AI increases our freedom and autonomy and abilities rather than undermine them. It's just as important to push things where we want them to go as it is to be aware of where we don't want them to go.
zb3 1y ago
So it begins.. first ChatGPT then Meta, Google will soon follow. But for me this is also a sign their free chat products are deeply unsustainable.
jjfoooo4 1y ago
I'm very curious to know what kind of adoption Meta's AI features are getting. The idea of anyone wanting to talk to AI persona's in a similar way to how they talk to their friends is completely bizarre to me, but they seem to be pushing it quite hard
- munificent 1y ago
  > The idea of anyone wanting to talk to AI persona's in a similar way to how they talk to their friends You may be overestimating how many people have friends to talk to in the first place.
- notatoad 1y ago
  check out the chatGPT subreddit last weekend for the meltdowns from people who were routed away from gpt-4o to the "safety" version of the model when they tried to discuss controversial topics - they sound like somebody confiscated their best friend. i think more people are treating an LLM like a friend than you might expect - i was certainly surprised.
rchaud 1y ago
There used to be a cliche about technology adoption being driven by the porn industry (DVD, HD cameras, online distribution). Now it seems that new technology development is being driven by the ads industry.
evanjrowley 1y ago
Meanwhile, my Android phone has been doing this the entire time.
greatgib 1y ago
I'm so conflicted about Meta, because at the same time I despise the company, Facebook, and their business activity, so I would not mind seeing them going down. But, on the other side, I think that it is one of the nicest one of the big tech in term of Open Source. They have great valuable project that are technically good, and respecting very permissive Open Source licenses in the spirit of "here is a gift, we don't care what you do with this". Even Llama is a little bit in this spirit, even if the license is not that "free" in theory. But how many of the self-hosted and tinkerer AI users owe to Meta for their models to have bootstrapped the field and still fueling it. On that aspect I would be quite sad to see them going down. So, in the end, I'm more in a split-ed brain spirit where I enjoy their contributions avoiding to use it and give them my data, but being thankful to the poor clueless users that sacrifice themselves by using it.
- lioeters 1y ago
  > one of the nicest one of the big tech in term of Open Source. They have great valuable project[s] that are technically good I agree, many of the big tech corps - even Microsoft - have technically excellent and actually useful projects with open source license. But I wouldn't call any of the companies "nice" since their only purpose is to make profit, usually by exploiting their workers and users. Companies are convenient fictions, one can go up in flames and another will take its place. (Though of course "tres comas" unicorns are one in a million.) But all that money sure attracts great talent, with some doing great open-source work. It's those individuals who should be valued for contributing to the good of humanity - in spite of the overall system within which they work.
Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
The tech industry really really wants do this whole torment nexus thing and there doesn't seem like anything can stop them.
hulitu 1y ago
> Meta will listen into AI conversations to personalize ads Yes, and whatch your naked photos, and watch your porn. Remember that Android/iOS are secure OSs where you "can" allow an app access to all your files ? And when you don't allow, they find other ways to spy on you. (see recent discovery that Meta's process has interesting access)
Razengan 1y ago
The ads industry is cancer for everyone.

210 points by Bender 1y ago

I am not even surprised. Eventually all this company will stop talking about AGI and curing cancer and will just turn LLMs into another way to sell stuff to people, just like OpenAI already did

lerrin 1y ago

Let it begin

everdrive 1y ago

As will all LLMs eventually if they're not already? One more service online to assiduously avoid. Or maybe just game? Get in an unprotected web browser and complain to the LLM how you just never have any money and can't make ends meet, and get better pricing? Might be too much effort vs. simply not buying stuff in the first place.

Sharlin 1y ago
More likely you'll start getting ads trying to con you into taking payday loans or investing to crypto or Ponzi schemes or whatever.
captainkrtek 1y ago
Ads will just be payday loans, job boards, etc.
otikik 1y ago
"Re-structure your debt!" "Buy now pay later!"
Angostura 1y ago
I still have faith that Apple won’t do this with Apple Intelligence
- willvarfar 1y ago
  The App Store is full of paid search result placements etc. Search for app x and first result is competitor y etc. It's a slippery slope.
  - naikrovek 1y ago
    > It's a slippery slope. it's really not. each individual step down that staircase is considered and intentional. The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy.
    - RandomBacon 1y ago
      I think you left off the "/s" Yes, they will consider and intentionally take steps to make more money.
      - naikrovek 1y ago
        no /s. it is literally a logical fallacy.
    - sumeno 1y ago
      Slippery slope arguments are not always logical fallacies. Just dismissing any argument about a slippery slope as a fallacy is lazy (as is quoting logical fallacies in any argument)
      - naikrovek 1y ago
        > Slippery slope arguments are not always logical fallacies. show me a slippery slope that is not a series of deliberate decisions, then. i've never seen one. every single step down that slope required someone who wanted to go further down the slope and took the action(s) required to go further. there is no involuntary sliding down slopes here.
kode95 1y ago
> As will all LLMs eventually Proton has made an AI chatbot with an extreme focus on privacy: https://lumo.proton.me https://lumo.proton.me
- RandomBacon 1y ago
  Proton had a sale and I wanted to try their services out, but they would not let me register while on Mullvad's VPN. Their support said to not use a VPN when registering. I personally do not trust Proton.
  - Night_Thastus 1y ago
    This seems like a bit of a silly reason to not trust a company. There's a small mountain of companies that won't let you register if you're behind a VPN, or using a less-common e-mail provider (ie: protonmail). It's annoying but it's a bog standard technique for avoiding spam or fraud.
    - RandomBacon 1y ago
      I can buy expensive things to have delivered to a vacant house and run off in the night if I used a stolen credit card on a VPN, but a cheap digital service that can be cut off at anytime if there's fraud, can't handle a VPN.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      > This seems like a bit of a silly reason to not trust a company. A self-professed privacy-focused company that won't let privacy-conscious customers sign up does look a little sus.
      - ranger_danger 1y ago
        Is there perhaps some type of KYC law where they operate? Either way I would think it would be best to explain right there on the page, why they can't do it.

freedomben 1y ago

Not surprised, but still disappointed. I would have bought some of the glasses a while ago, but haven't purely because of privacy concerns. At this point the big tech ship is so massive that I don't see anything short of a (metaphorical) nuke stopping it. Given how cozy they all are with the current administration, I also don't expect any hindrances for at least a few more years, by which time this will all be even more heavily entrenched.

jonplackett 1y ago

How can anyone be surprised by this?

jimt1234 1y ago
Exactly. And this is what curation has always been about - not giving you (the customer/user) what you want, rather, giving you what we want.

hereme888 1y ago

Are they the first among Big Tech to publicly indicate this?

outside2344 1y ago

I think this is the most positive thing that could happen. What's more likely is that the whole response stream is manipulated to sell us things (ideas, products).

pyrale 1y ago
> What's more likely is that the whole response stream is manipulated to sell us things (ideas, products). Even then, you still want additional advertising, so that people believe the manipulated responses are genuine.
AJ007 1y ago
All of the future billion dollar model training runs might be for conversion rate optimization. User mentions they didn't sleep well. Model delivers jarring information right before user's bed time. Model subtly suggests other sleep disruptive activities, user receives coupons for free coffee. User converts for ad for sleeping medication. (This is already happening, intentionally or not) Notably the open source models OpenAI released right before gpt5 are likely good enough to be substitutes for 95% of typical ChatGPT use cases.

tempodox 1y ago

Just in case anyone was still in denial about Meta merely being facebook by another name. Everyone knows facebook is an ad company and as mercenary as they come. What was that renaming good for when they’re constantly reminding everyone that they haven’t changed one bit?

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45444896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45444896

yoyohello13 1y ago

I often think back to that 'dystopia simulator' LLM on HN years ago that would always plug an ad for Taco Bell or something after it's responses. That always seemed like the most plausible end game for all this stuff unfortunately.

wredcoll 1y ago
Just to pile on, an ad for literally taco bell is kinda the least worst case. Subtle additions about jews being evil or taxes being immoral seem far worse.
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  Or what about a persistent influence towards a victim mindset? Convincing people to be dissatisfied with everything outside their control and sabotage everything within their control. That sounds like a recipe for hell
  - lucasban 1y ago
    Why not both?
  - bccdee 1y ago
    I don't see why chatbot platforms would ever be interested in promoting such a bias. Seems like it would just engender dissatisfaction with the status quo that benefits the tech oligarchs who own those platforms in the first place.
    - FloorEgg 1y ago
      You don't already see this playing out with social media? There are so many paths towards this type of outcome: - eliciting negative emotions is one of the most effective ways to get and keep peoples attention. - foreign states buy platforms to sabotage population of rival states - costs of chatbots drop by orders of magnitude, making profiting off them less important Those three points alone cover a wide area of potential negative outcomes... I'm not anti AI, but I'm trying to stay eyes wide open. AI can drive a lot of good, but to me the biggest risk is a population of people sleepwalking into being subjected to whatever the AI wants to make them think. I try to focus my efforts where I can, to influence an outcome where AI increases our freedom and autonomy and abilities rather than undermine them. It's just as important to push things where we want them to go as it is to be aware of where we don't want them to go.

zb3 1y ago

So it begins.. first ChatGPT then Meta, Google will soon follow. But for me this is also a sign their free chat products are deeply unsustainable.

jjfoooo4 1y ago

I'm very curious to know what kind of adoption Meta's AI features are getting. The idea of anyone wanting to talk to AI persona's in a similar way to how they talk to their friends is completely bizarre to me, but they seem to be pushing it quite hard

munificent 1y ago
> The idea of anyone wanting to talk to AI persona's in a similar way to how they talk to their friends You may be overestimating how many people have friends to talk to in the first place.
notatoad 1y ago
check out the chatGPT subreddit last weekend for the meltdowns from people who were routed away from gpt-4o to the "safety" version of the model when they tried to discuss controversial topics - they sound like somebody confiscated their best friend. i think more people are treating an LLM like a friend than you might expect - i was certainly surprised.

rchaud 1y ago

There used to be a cliche about technology adoption being driven by the porn industry (DVD, HD cameras, online distribution). Now it seems that new technology development is being driven by the ads industry.

evanjrowley 1y ago

Meanwhile, my Android phone has been doing this the entire time.

greatgib 1y ago

I'm so conflicted about Meta, because at the same time I despise the company, Facebook, and their business activity, so I would not mind seeing them going down. But, on the other side, I think that it is one of the nicest one of the big tech in term of Open Source. They have great valuable project that are technically good, and respecting very permissive Open Source licenses in the spirit of "here is a gift, we don't care what you do with this". Even Llama is a little bit in this spirit, even if the license is not that "free" in theory. But how many of the self-hosted and tinkerer AI users owe to Meta for their models to have bootstrapped the field and still fueling it. On that aspect I would be quite sad to see them going down. So, in the end, I'm more in a split-ed brain spirit where I enjoy their contributions avoiding to use it and give them my data, but being thankful to the poor clueless users that sacrifice themselves by using it.

lioeters 1y ago
> one of the nicest one of the big tech in term of Open Source. They have great valuable project[s] that are technically good I agree, many of the big tech corps - even Microsoft - have technically excellent and actually useful projects with open source license. But I wouldn't call any of the companies "nice" since their only purpose is to make profit, usually by exploiting their workers and users. Companies are convenient fictions, one can go up in flames and another will take its place. (Though of course "tres comas" unicorns are one in a million.) But all that money sure attracts great talent, with some doing great open-source work. It's those individuals who should be valued for contributing to the good of humanity - in spite of the overall system within which they work.

Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago

The tech industry really really wants do this whole torment nexus thing and there doesn't seem like anything can stop them.

hulitu 1y ago

> Meta will listen into AI conversations to personalize ads Yes, and whatch your naked photos, and watch your porn. Remember that Android/iOS are secure OSs where you "can" allow an app access to all your files ? And when you don't allow, they find other ways to spy on you. (see recent discovery that Meta's process has interesting access)

Razengan 1y ago

The ads industry is cancer for everyone.