6 ms·

Is she paying for it? That is the only question that matters in the end. For myself, I use LLMs daily and I would even say a lot on some days and I _did_ pay t

Is she paying for it? That is the only question that matters in the end. For myself, I use LLMs daily and I would even say a lot on some days and I _did_ pay the 20€/mo subscription for ChatGPT, but with the latest model I cannot justify that anymore. 4o was amazingly good even if it had some parasocial issues with some people, it actually did what I expect an LLM to do. Now the quality of the 5.whatever has gone drastically down. It no longer searches web for things it doesn't know, but instead guesses. Even worse is the tone it uses; "Let's look at this calmly" and other repeated sentences are just off putting and make the conversation feel like the LLM thinks I am about to kill myself constantly and that is not what I want from my LLM.

sigmoid10 7mo ago
>Is she paying for it? That is the only question that matters in the end. Don't underestimate advertising. Noone pays for Facebook or Google search. Yet the ad business with a couple billion users seems profitable enough to fund frontier LLM research and inference infrastructure as a side-gig in these companies. Google only rushed out AI overview because they saw ChatGPT eating their market share in information retrieval and Zuck is literally panicking about the fact that users share more personal details with OpenAI than on his doomscrolling attention sinks.
- nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
  Maybe I am underestimating how suggestible average people are as someone who has never in their lives clicked on an ad I just can't see ads being anything but a deterrent for using the service
  - minraws 7mo ago
    Ads aren't just for click through, they are for suggestions, and mind share as well. You can't click on the budweiser logo when watching super bowl ad. But if you sit in your chatgpt window all day then it's probably worth it for advertisers to expect to build familiarity with brands they advertise.
    - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
      Really depends what the ads are. If they are popups or other intrusive ads the product will just die. If they are subtle hints in the text how are you going to track it. I don't know, I just don't believe in ads, but then again I am dirty commie so who am I to tell you not to
      - edgyquant 7mo ago
        That’s not the point. The point is that brands build awareness through ads that don’t require clicking and this ha effected you whether you want to admit it or not
        nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
        And my point is that I don’t care. I don’t watch ads, I don’t buy things because of ads.
        fuzzfactor 7mo ago
        Your messages are very consistent, it all adds up and makes perfect sense. I don't care either. Online I get lots of ads blocked, but not all, I really don't put much effort into it beyond default. So what if I am "influenced" if it doesn't effect any significant part of my behavior. One thing I never do is respond with money. I'm just not a "consumer" so that goes back before the internet. Sure I see ads thrown at me which keep me aware of those brands but the only buys I make would happen without any ads. On the rare occasion that I want to make a significant purchase, then I will seek out the ad. Oh the horror ! But I want to see how honest I think it is compared to a number of reviews. It's really pretty neutral since it's just as much me using the ad as the ad using me, plus equally good for knowing what looks good to buy as knowing what brand not to buy. Then there's the interesting way when an overall economic downturn gets rougher you see ads for things that almost never need advertising for years in a row, or never have before :\ OTOH you also see some of the most trivial stuff that must be flying off the shelf and all you can do is shake your head ;)
  - smiley1437 7mo ago
    I agree with you, I can't stand ads However, I believe an ad it still influences you subconsciously as long as it is in your sight line. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of investigation into subtly slipping advertising in the LLM responses the way Korean dramas have product placement right in the storyline (Subway, bbq chicken, beverages, makeup, etc).
    - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
      Subtle things like the guy in CSI Miami talking about how good Subway is for 5 minutes? Of course stuff in the world influences me, I am still a human. Still I have never clicked an ad and bought something. I simply don't get who would. Same as with the super market placing candy and stuff next to the cashier to get people to buy more, I have never been swayed by those because when I go to the store I am always on a mission and know before hand what I am buying. It would be cool to see all the times I have been influenced into buying something because of subconscious advertisement, but that's kind a impossible so all I can do is deny it and of course all marketing people will say that I am wrong. And we can argue forever what counts as an advertisement. For example I recently bought a new mouse pad, I wasn't particularly looking for a specific one, just something fun and bright and as I was browsing a web store they had a cool design for half off and I bought it. Maybe that was targeted advertisement, but I had already made the decision to buy a new mousepad and had been browsing on and off for few weeks, so was it really? I would argue not.
      - yunohn 7mo ago
        You seem to have defined ads as "obvious calls to action that end up in me buying it for sure". That's a pretty narrow view of marketing, but it does feel like you are aware that there may be other forms as you provide examples across the thread. It comes off as some form of elitism, where you deem the simplest ads as ineffective on yourself (but work on "average people") - but then go on to mention things like discounts and sponsorships, which to most are obvious marketing ploys too. No judgement, but maybe reflect on this?
        7mo ago
  - sigmoid10 7mo ago
    >Maybe I am underestimating You sure are. And it sounds like you are also underestimating the effect yourself as well. In fact this perception is so common that there is even a name for it in psychology: Third-person effect. Many people believe that advertising does not affect them. But ironically, the more you believe so, the more likely you are to fall victim to particular types of advertising. And in general your response to ads will be very similar to everyone else's. These "annoying" ads that you "would never click on" are just badly personalized or badly placed ads. That's the only type that gets stuck in your mind when you think of ads, based on your personal biases. But the major tech companies have spent the last one-and-a-half decades on perfecting the psychology of advertising. You might think you are immune, but you are certainly not. Every buying decision you have made in the last 10 years was almost certainly influenced to some degree. Just not always consciously. And I'm willing to bet that a lot of buying decisions were already heavily influenced by ChatGPT, even before their shopping feature. OpenAI just didn't profit on them as much as they could.
    - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
      Influenced to some degree sure, weather influences me to some degree, but I truly feel like ads aren't affective on me. Unless we broaden definition of ads to something like sponsored content. I have bought some TTRPG rules sets after I have seen them being played in a sponsored video, but I still have never clicked an ad on a page and bought something. And I actually have tried to use ChatGPT to buy something. I have asked it to search for specific items from EU stores so I wouldn't need to pay import taxes, but usually it fails. It either suggests Global stores which ship from US or China or it suggests different products than what I asked for. If ChatGPT or whatever LLM I was using could actually link me the products I wanted without me searching for them they should get a commission for sure, but we sure aren't there yet.
      - edgyquant 7mo ago
        Sponsored content is definitely a form of advertisement
        7mo ago
  - skeptic_ai 7mo ago
    Imagine subliminal messages being sent in the llm responses carefully created for max impact on you. I’m sure many companies will pay to recommend their product on ChatGPT.
    - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
      Okay, but if we are going scifi why not just beam ads in to dreams like in Futurama?
      - Sharlin 7mo ago
        The word "subliminal" and its connotations aside, it's not like subtly influencing people without them noticing is anything new.
  - echelon 7mo ago
    > Maybe I am underestimating Advertising is one of the biggest markets on the planet. Meta is nearly a $2T company and is making record profits.
- SlinkyOnStairs 7mo ago
  > Don't underestimate advertising. OpenAI is talking out of their ass with their advertising plans. Meta and Google are an advertising duopoly, extremely anti-competitive, and basically defrauding their own customers. OpenAI can't just replicate that. Worse still is that OpenAI has no competitive edge. All the hype around their advertising plans is based on the idea that they can blend the ads right into the response, a turbocharged version of Native Advertising. This is explicitly illegal. Very explicitly. The US' FTC may have been declawed by the current US government, but the rest of the west will nuke them from orbit over it. Doubtless OpenAI will try some stunt alike marking the entire LLM response as "this is an ad", but that won't satisfy the regulators. This only gets worse with further problems. An LLM hallucinating product features is going to invoke regulator wrath as well, and an LLM deciding to cut off the adcopy early will invoke the wrath of the advertiser. > Yet the ad business with a couple billion users seems profitable enough to fund frontier LLM research and inference infrastructure as a side-gig in these companies Also important: Not anymore. The tech giants are now issuing quite a lot of debt to pay for the AI plans.
  - parliament32 7mo ago
    > This is explicitly illegal. Is it really any different than product placement in TV shows/movies?
  - sigmoid10 7mo ago
    If that were true Meta and Google wouldn't be so desperate to get in the game. And don't think that other nations would step in against abusive marketing practices. The EU has been battling uphill for decades and the only ones who had some moderate success for user rights are private groups like NYOB. There is no law that will save the old tech companies and they know it.
dahcryn 7mo ago
not necessarily, if openai managed to monetize free users. Could be through advertising, or integrations with marketplaces on commission (e.g. order your next Hello Fresh through ChatGPT? Get recommended a hotel?) They could succeed where Alexa failed. A free user can even bring in more than a paid user if you look at some platforms like spotify, where apparently there is a large chunk of free users generating more income through ads than if they would pay
- nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
  We are so far away from ordering stuff from LLM
  - ccozan 7mo ago
    Not really! I was researching CAVA ( due to the crazy earnigs announcement yesterday ) and it was displaying some nice links to the website, all suffixed with ?utm=chatgpt So, it has begun!
carlosjobim 7mo ago
Most potential customers wouldn't ever think in terms as "justifying" a €20 purchase when the product is great. ChatGPT (and competitors) is an incredibly high value tool, and €20 per month is nothing for somebody who wants or needs it. It's just a matter of if they use it enough to start hitting the daily limits.
- nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
  This is why people are constantly moaning about paying too many subscriptions and why we have companies whose whole business is to remind you to not pay for stupid subscriptions. As if paying constantly for a thing is normal and not dystopian
  - carlosjobim 7mo ago
    People are completely irrational when it comes to their personal finances, and hackers are the group who is most irrational of all. For a few bucks per month you have access to artificial intelligence on a level which was completely unheard of just a few years ago. A revolution on the level of electricity or radio communication. And you are still complaining about price. Consider if it's only habit that you have learnt from others. People talk all the time about the price of milk, eggs or gas, even though these things could double in price and still be incredible value. Then they turn around and waste enormous sums of money on completely meaningless stuff.
fuzzfactor 7mo ago
>no longer searches web for things it doesn't know, but instead guesses. This could very well have been a cost-reduction effort to try and simulate what it was doing before. Somebody must think training has already looked at the web enough, or there may be too much slop now that there was no contingency for. Then you've got tighter guardrails to make it more palatable for a wider audience. I guess different people would draw the line differently, but when it goes from being worth money to not worth it any more that could be an enshittification effect. Especially if things like that accelerate.

sigmoid10 7mo ago

>Is she paying for it? That is the only question that matters in the end. Don't underestimate advertising. Noone pays for Facebook or Google search. Yet the ad business with a couple billion users seems profitable enough to fund frontier LLM research and inference infrastructure as a side-gig in these companies. Google only rushed out AI overview because they saw ChatGPT eating their market share in information retrieval and Zuck is literally panicking about the fact that users share more personal details with OpenAI than on his doomscrolling attention sinks.

nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
Maybe I am underestimating how suggestible average people are as someone who has never in their lives clicked on an ad I just can't see ads being anything but a deterrent for using the service
- minraws 7mo ago
  Ads aren't just for click through, they are for suggestions, and mind share as well. You can't click on the budweiser logo when watching super bowl ad. But if you sit in your chatgpt window all day then it's probably worth it for advertisers to expect to build familiarity with brands they advertise.
  - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
    Really depends what the ads are. If they are popups or other intrusive ads the product will just die. If they are subtle hints in the text how are you going to track it. I don't know, I just don't believe in ads, but then again I am dirty commie so who am I to tell you not to
    - edgyquant 7mo ago
      That’s not the point. The point is that brands build awareness through ads that don’t require clicking and this ha effected you whether you want to admit it or not
      - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
        And my point is that I don’t care. I don’t watch ads, I don’t buy things because of ads.
        fuzzfactor 7mo ago
        Your messages are very consistent, it all adds up and makes perfect sense. I don't care either. Online I get lots of ads blocked, but not all, I really don't put much effort into it beyond default. So what if I am "influenced" if it doesn't effect any significant part of my behavior. One thing I never do is respond with money. I'm just not a "consumer" so that goes back before the internet. Sure I see ads thrown at me which keep me aware of those brands but the only buys I make would happen without any ads. On the rare occasion that I want to make a significant purchase, then I will seek out the ad. Oh the horror ! But I want to see how honest I think it is compared to a number of reviews. It's really pretty neutral since it's just as much me using the ad as the ad using me, plus equally good for knowing what looks good to buy as knowing what brand not to buy. Then there's the interesting way when an overall economic downturn gets rougher you see ads for things that almost never need advertising for years in a row, or never have before :\ OTOH you also see some of the most trivial stuff that must be flying off the shelf and all you can do is shake your head ;)
- smiley1437 7mo ago
  I agree with you, I can't stand ads However, I believe an ad it still influences you subconsciously as long as it is in your sight line. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of investigation into subtly slipping advertising in the LLM responses the way Korean dramas have product placement right in the storyline (Subway, bbq chicken, beverages, makeup, etc).
  - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
    Subtle things like the guy in CSI Miami talking about how good Subway is for 5 minutes? Of course stuff in the world influences me, I am still a human. Still I have never clicked an ad and bought something. I simply don't get who would. Same as with the super market placing candy and stuff next to the cashier to get people to buy more, I have never been swayed by those because when I go to the store I am always on a mission and know before hand what I am buying. It would be cool to see all the times I have been influenced into buying something because of subconscious advertisement, but that's kind a impossible so all I can do is deny it and of course all marketing people will say that I am wrong. And we can argue forever what counts as an advertisement. For example I recently bought a new mouse pad, I wasn't particularly looking for a specific one, just something fun and bright and as I was browsing a web store they had a cool design for half off and I bought it. Maybe that was targeted advertisement, but I had already made the decision to buy a new mousepad and had been browsing on and off for few weeks, so was it really? I would argue not.
    - yunohn 7mo ago
      You seem to have defined ads as "obvious calls to action that end up in me buying it for sure". That's a pretty narrow view of marketing, but it does feel like you are aware that there may be other forms as you provide examples across the thread. It comes off as some form of elitism, where you deem the simplest ads as ineffective on yourself (but work on "average people") - but then go on to mention things like discounts and sponsorships, which to most are obvious marketing ploys too. No judgement, but maybe reflect on this?
      - 7mo ago
- sigmoid10 7mo ago
  >Maybe I am underestimating You sure are. And it sounds like you are also underestimating the effect yourself as well. In fact this perception is so common that there is even a name for it in psychology: Third-person effect. Many people believe that advertising does not affect them. But ironically, the more you believe so, the more likely you are to fall victim to particular types of advertising. And in general your response to ads will be very similar to everyone else's. These "annoying" ads that you "would never click on" are just badly personalized or badly placed ads. That's the only type that gets stuck in your mind when you think of ads, based on your personal biases. But the major tech companies have spent the last one-and-a-half decades on perfecting the psychology of advertising. You might think you are immune, but you are certainly not. Every buying decision you have made in the last 10 years was almost certainly influenced to some degree. Just not always consciously. And I'm willing to bet that a lot of buying decisions were already heavily influenced by ChatGPT, even before their shopping feature. OpenAI just didn't profit on them as much as they could.
  - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
    Influenced to some degree sure, weather influences me to some degree, but I truly feel like ads aren't affective on me. Unless we broaden definition of ads to something like sponsored content. I have bought some TTRPG rules sets after I have seen them being played in a sponsored video, but I still have never clicked an ad on a page and bought something. And I actually have tried to use ChatGPT to buy something. I have asked it to search for specific items from EU stores so I wouldn't need to pay import taxes, but usually it fails. It either suggests Global stores which ship from US or China or it suggests different products than what I asked for. If ChatGPT or whatever LLM I was using could actually link me the products I wanted without me searching for them they should get a commission for sure, but we sure aren't there yet.
    - edgyquant 7mo ago
      Sponsored content is definitely a form of advertisement
      - 7mo ago
- skeptic_ai 7mo ago
  Imagine subliminal messages being sent in the llm responses carefully created for max impact on you. I’m sure many companies will pay to recommend their product on ChatGPT.
  - nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
    Okay, but if we are going scifi why not just beam ads in to dreams like in Futurama?
    - Sharlin 7mo ago
      The word "subliminal" and its connotations aside, it's not like subtly influencing people without them noticing is anything new.
- echelon 7mo ago
  > Maybe I am underestimating Advertising is one of the biggest markets on the planet. Meta is nearly a $2T company and is making record profits.
SlinkyOnStairs 7mo ago
> Don't underestimate advertising. OpenAI is talking out of their ass with their advertising plans. Meta and Google are an advertising duopoly, extremely anti-competitive, and basically defrauding their own customers. OpenAI can't just replicate that. Worse still is that OpenAI has no competitive edge. All the hype around their advertising plans is based on the idea that they can blend the ads right into the response, a turbocharged version of Native Advertising. This is explicitly illegal. Very explicitly. The US' FTC may have been declawed by the current US government, but the rest of the west will nuke them from orbit over it. Doubtless OpenAI will try some stunt alike marking the entire LLM response as "this is an ad", but that won't satisfy the regulators. This only gets worse with further problems. An LLM hallucinating product features is going to invoke regulator wrath as well, and an LLM deciding to cut off the adcopy early will invoke the wrath of the advertiser. > Yet the ad business with a couple billion users seems profitable enough to fund frontier LLM research and inference infrastructure as a side-gig in these companies Also important: Not anymore. The tech giants are now issuing quite a lot of debt to pay for the AI plans.
- parliament32 7mo ago
  > This is explicitly illegal. Is it really any different than product placement in TV shows/movies?
- sigmoid10 7mo ago
  If that were true Meta and Google wouldn't be so desperate to get in the game. And don't think that other nations would step in against abusive marketing practices. The EU has been battling uphill for decades and the only ones who had some moderate success for user rights are private groups like NYOB. There is no law that will save the old tech companies and they know it.

dahcryn 7mo ago

not necessarily, if openai managed to monetize free users. Could be through advertising, or integrations with marketplaces on commission (e.g. order your next Hello Fresh through ChatGPT? Get recommended a hotel?) They could succeed where Alexa failed. A free user can even bring in more than a paid user if you look at some platforms like spotify, where apparently there is a large chunk of free users generating more income through ads than if they would pay

nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
We are so far away from ordering stuff from LLM
- ccozan 7mo ago
  Not really! I was researching CAVA ( due to the crazy earnigs announcement yesterday ) and it was displaying some nice links to the website, all suffixed with ?utm=chatgpt So, it has begun!

carlosjobim 7mo ago

Most potential customers wouldn't ever think in terms as "justifying" a €20 purchase when the product is great. ChatGPT (and competitors) is an incredibly high value tool, and €20 per month is nothing for somebody who wants or needs it. It's just a matter of if they use it enough to start hitting the daily limits.

nextlevelwizard 7mo ago
This is why people are constantly moaning about paying too many subscriptions and why we have companies whose whole business is to remind you to not pay for stupid subscriptions. As if paying constantly for a thing is normal and not dystopian
- carlosjobim 7mo ago
  People are completely irrational when it comes to their personal finances, and hackers are the group who is most irrational of all. For a few bucks per month you have access to artificial intelligence on a level which was completely unheard of just a few years ago. A revolution on the level of electricity or radio communication. And you are still complaining about price. Consider if it's only habit that you have learnt from others. People talk all the time about the price of milk, eggs or gas, even though these things could double in price and still be incredible value. Then they turn around and waste enormous sums of money on completely meaningless stuff.

fuzzfactor 7mo ago

>no longer searches web for things it doesn't know, but instead guesses. This could very well have been a cost-reduction effort to try and simulate what it was doing before. Somebody must think training has already looked at the web enough, or there may be too much slop now that there was no contingency for. Then you've got tighter guardrails to make it more palatable for a wider audience. I guess different people would draw the line differently, but when it goes from being worth money to not worth it any more that could be an enshittification effect. Especially if things like that accelerate.