3 ms·

I just saw a sibling post about Kagi, maybe this is how the industry will end up, with a main provider like OpenAI and niche wrappers on top (I know Kagi is not

by andy99 9mo ago

I just saw a sibling post about Kagi, maybe this is how the industry will end up, with a main provider like OpenAI and niche wrappers on top (I know Kagi is not just a google wrapper but at least they used to return google search results that they paid for).

nothrabannosir 9mo ago
I thought you were going to say “that comment recommending Kagi is exactly what those ads would look like: native responses making product recommendations as if they’re natural responses in the conversation”
- MontyCarloHall 9mo ago
  Ding ding ding. Look at all the brands mentioned in just this thread. From a cursory look, I see: * WSJ * Bloomberg * Financial Times * Cartier * Kagi * Protonmail * Coca-Cola * HBO * Windex * Netflix * Azure * AWS We are all ourselves advertisers, we just don't realize it. It is inevitable that chatbots will be RLHF-trained in our footsteps.
  - fph 9mo ago
    That is a weird definition of advertising. It's not an ad if I mention (or even recommend) a product in a post, without going off-topic and without getting any financial benefit.
    - MontyCarloHall 9mo ago
      The New American Oxford Dictionary defines "advertisement" as "a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event." By that definition, anything that mentions a product in a neutral light (thereby building brand awareness) or positive light (explicitly promotional) is an ad. The fact that it may not be paid for is irrelevant. A chatbot tuned to casually drop product references like in this thread would build a huge amount of brand awareness and be worth an incredible amount. A chatbot tuned to be insidiously promotional in a surgically targeted way would be worth even more. I took a quick look at your comment history. If OpenAI/Anthropic/etc. were paid by JuliaHub/Dan Simmons' publisher/Humble Bundle to make these comments in their chatbots, we would unambiguously call them ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46279782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46279782: Precisely; today Julia already solves many of those problems. It also removes many of Matlab's footguns like `[1,2,3] + [4;5;6]`, or also `diag(rand(m,n))` doing two different things depending on whether m or n are 1. (for the sake of argument, pretend Julia is commercial software like Matlab.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46067423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46067423: I wasn't expecting to read a Hyperion reference in this thread, such a great book. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921788: > Name a game distribution platform that respects its customers Humble Bundle. You seem like a pretty smart, levelheaded person, and I would be much more likely to check out Julia, read Hyperion, or download a Humble Bundle based on your comments than I would be from out-of-context advertisements. The very best advertising is organic word-of-mouth, and chatbots will do their damndest to emulate it.

by andy99 9mo ago

nothrabannosir 9mo ago

I thought you were going to say “that comment recommending Kagi is exactly what those ads would look like: native responses making product recommendations as if they’re natural responses in the conversation”

MontyCarloHall 9mo ago
Ding ding ding. Look at all the brands mentioned in just this thread. From a cursory look, I see: * WSJ * Bloomberg * Financial Times * Cartier * Kagi * Protonmail * Coca-Cola * HBO * Windex * Netflix * Azure * AWS We are all ourselves advertisers, we just don't realize it. It is inevitable that chatbots will be RLHF-trained in our footsteps.
- fph 9mo ago
  That is a weird definition of advertising. It's not an ad if I mention (or even recommend) a product in a post, without going off-topic and without getting any financial benefit.
  - MontyCarloHall 9mo ago
    The New American Oxford Dictionary defines "advertisement" as "a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event." By that definition, anything that mentions a product in a neutral light (thereby building brand awareness) or positive light (explicitly promotional) is an ad. The fact that it may not be paid for is irrelevant. A chatbot tuned to casually drop product references like in this thread would build a huge amount of brand awareness and be worth an incredible amount. A chatbot tuned to be insidiously promotional in a surgically targeted way would be worth even more. I took a quick look at your comment history. If OpenAI/Anthropic/etc. were paid by JuliaHub/Dan Simmons' publisher/Humble Bundle to make these comments in their chatbots, we would unambiguously call them ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46279782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46279782: Precisely; today Julia already solves many of those problems. It also removes many of Matlab's footguns like `[1,2,3] + [4;5;6]`, or also `diag(rand(m,n))` doing two different things depending on whether m or n are 1. (for the sake of argument, pretend Julia is commercial software like Matlab.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46067423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46067423: I wasn't expecting to read a Hyperion reference in this thread, such a great book. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921788: > Name a game distribution platform that respects its customers Humble Bundle. You seem like a pretty smart, levelheaded person, and I would be much more likely to check out Julia, read Hyperion, or download a Humble Bundle based on your comments than I would be from out-of-context advertisements. The very best advertising is organic word-of-mouth, and chatbots will do their damndest to emulate it.