5 ms·

Who actually wants this? I guess we’re about to find out if this helps put out the massive pile of burning cash that OpenAI is trying to deal with, but I know

by cmiles8 15d ago

Who actually wants this? I guess we’re about to find out if this helps put out the massive pile of burning cash that OpenAI is trying to deal with, but I know nobody that wants this. OpenAI claims we’re near AGI and this is the best strategy they have? Oy vey!

outside1234 15d ago
Nobody wants this. We only need them to offer propaganda as a service and the enshitification will be complete.
- daveguy 15d ago
  Isn't that primarily what they offer anyway? So "subscription required" would check that box.
nbaugh1 15d ago
Who wants any ads?
- deleted 15d ago
  [deleted]
taytus 15d ago
>Who actually wants this? Investors
brazukadev 15d ago
> Who actually wants this? Sam Altman. It is his last resort, he said some time ago (which is not true, regulation/"slowing down the pace of AI" seems to be the latest).
hodder 15d ago
This is a solution looking for a problem, built to satisfy the creator instead of serving the buyer. This is exactly what PG warns against doing. One would think Sam would know this too.
j45 15d ago
Could be exploring old and new ways of monetization.
chunky1994 15d ago
OpenAI's shareholders, and only them. I doubt any consumer of ChatGPT wants ads, and even if they did, it would be a specific kind of ad. They specifically would not want ads if they cannot identify them as ads (like google has eventually done on the search page) or if they are not good ads.
- Sherl 15d ago
  If the free tier offers upgraded limits or smarter models funded by ads, I do not see the harm. Even for the paid tier, price elasticity experiments can be subdued in lieu of ad-supported tiers instead. This is all inevitable, just matter of when and how and what it takes.
deleted 15d ago
[deleted]
mym1990 15d ago
Advertisers, for one.
_menelaus 15d ago
People that don't want to pay for everyday AI, which is most people.
theptip 15d ago
Is this not just connecting you with a sales rep? If so, who wants this is literally every mainstream consumer. AFAICT the flow is click ad then get an agent that is grounded in the official sales resources. This should mean the agent has the latest and canonical product catalog, offers, etc. so the users own agent doesn’t need to search on the web. Fun ideas - can my main agent invoke these as a sub-agent, so I can get offers from multiple competitors? Can I loop them into a conversation to debate their products and observe which wins on my objective function? Concerns - of course if the harness injects (or can be prompt hacked to inject) personal information then it’s a big problem. > OpenAI claims we’re near AGI and this is the best strategy they have? Oy vey! Where did they say it’s the best? Obviously a short-term bridge strategy to drive “mundane” economic activity and juice the IPO. They are of course working on drug discovery and nuclear reactor plasma physics too. A good strategy has a portfolio of plays.
- bbg2401 15d ago
  > who wants this is literally every mainstream consumer. Any basis for believing this?
  - theptip 15d ago
    I hyperbolize, and I apologize. But it’s a huge market segment already: NYSE:CRM, NYSE:HUBS would be some starting points. Also, just analogizing to how consumers interact with retail, you have reps you can talk to, this is a proven model for millennia, and it’s one of the big gaps in online sales. “This is not in fact a sales rep” would be a reasonable objection. “People do not want sales reps” is a weird position to take IMO.
ShadowOfThePit 15d ago
If it helps the lower tiers of ChatGPT continue being free, I'd support it.
kryogen1c 15d ago
> Who actually wants this? I mean, not to be rude to this and all sibling commenters, but obviously everyone? I feel like this comment has no basis in reality. People want things cheaper and they tolerate ads. Those two things put together means everything gets ads and gets cheaper? YouTube exists for free and costs billions to run. Companies A/B test ad tiers and paid non-ad tiers, and the results are always the same.
- beering 15d ago
  You’re not rude for pointing out the obvious. The parent comment is complaining in bad faith because they want to have free service in perpetuity. Similar to the people complaining about YouTube ads but the options of either paying or not watching YouTube are unimaginable.
- realo 15d ago
  We are not living on the same planet. I do not want cheaper, I want quality at a reasonable price. Sometimes I even accept an unreasonable price for the quality (think Apple stuff). I will never buy crap at cheapest bargain prices. Cheap clothes barely survive a couple of washes, good quality clothes survive much, much longer. Yes, they are more expensive short term, quite a bit less expensive long term. Also, not once, ever, was my buying decision influenced by an ad. What influences my decisions is the problems, the defects i will have, or not, with what I chose to buy. Usually, the longer time it works the more expensive it is.
blahblaher 15d ago
They probably have the most amount of private amount of information about "you". Ads is a logical step for them, since subscriptions, at the current price, don't pay for the costs.
royal__ 15d ago
Advertisers want this.
therealdrag0 15d ago
HN lives in a bubble. I am certain many people will happily use these.
- bothers 15d ago
  All but you, buddy boy. Right?
  - therealdrag0 15d ago
    Some people have more diverse backgrounds than others, both in total or relative to a particular subject. A lot of people are making factual universal claims about ads in this thread that are directly contradicted by my personal experience talking to people.
jedberg 15d ago
I'll be a little contrarian here. I've actually purchased things from Instagram ads. Because they were highly targeted and actually something I wanted once I learned it existed. It was a solution to a problem I had but never researched for a solution. I'm guessing ChatGPT will be able to do the same for me, especially since it probably knows me better than Instagram at this point, just given all the things I ask it. If they do it right, it will be helpful. The big question is will they do it right.
- smashed 15d ago
  Well of course the ads work, that is not quite the point. If social media ads did not work, meta would not be worth over a trillion dollars. The point is do users want ads? Or more reasonably, should platforms offer a paid, ad-free, experience.
  - awad 15d ago
    OpenAI does offer many paid, ad-free experiences. The vast majority of their user base, being consumers, don't take them up on it, but it's been there from pretty much day one.
- cmiles8 15d ago
  But Instagram ads are just billboards in digital form. The idea of influencing an AI is a whole different ballgame.
  - amlib 15d ago
    It's already been so much worse, they are digital billboards most of the time presented as genuine organic content, like you and me posting in this platform. That alone has already changed the course of history, persuaded people by changing their views and made then more reactionary than ever. Whole elections were decided on this stuff. I can't begin to imagine the manipulative powers manipulative AI chatbot responses will bring.
- qlte 15d ago
  I heard similar anecdotes about Insta ads being the rare example of showing products that were relevant and useful, sold by a "small" business (the appearance of one at least). That seemed to peak around 2022... So I may be wrong but assumed Insta ads have now converged with the rest of e-commerce on misleading eye-catching 100% AI imagery of drop-shipped throwaway products (like those garden hose spray attachments in a tacticool pistol design or giant mugs). Is that not a problem yet?
tomjen3 15d ago
I wanted to buy a JetKVM earlier, but could not find any that I could see shipped in Europe. That would be an obvious question to ask their chatbot.
0c3ca83 15d ago
This is a test balloon; the eventual end state is going to be buying bias for model recommendations. With agentic commerce, you end up with this: > > Hey, ChatGPT, I need a new pair of shoes! > Of course, Nike has a great pair that just came out. Would you like me to purchase them for you?
juiceland 15d ago
Most people either don't care or actually like targeted ads. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411110/consumer-perceptions-targeted-ads-and-personalization-worldwide/?srsltid=AU7gw4VHDBJ1HKyYaPipe1aqQGYKwG45lTHVcAQWhHaJ1wqIjTIFHCQd https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411110/consumer-percept...
- bix6 15d ago
  57% of people like being reminded about stuff left in their cart? My god we are cooked.
  - juiceland 15d ago
    Universally the answer I get whenever I ask non-tech people about targeted ads, the response I get is “well I want the ads to be for things I would actually buy.” I can’t get anyone to question why the ads are there to begin with.
    - Toslink 15d ago
      [dead]
LewisVerstappen 15d ago
If you don’t want it then just pay for ChatGPT. If you’re angry about it and ALSO don’t want to pay then I’m sure OpenAI doesn’t mind losing you as a customer.
- joquarky 15d ago
  That's not a valid argument to the "OpenAI trained on my content without compensation" crowd.
- simoncion 15d ago
  > If you don’t want it then just pay for ChatGPT. That will work until it very suddenly doesn't. The industry is awash in paid Internet-delivered advert-free services that suddenly got adverts stuck in them. And no, if you're in the US getting a refund for breach of contract won't likely be an option unless your contract explicitly permits you to terminate the contract and receive a refund for the unused time. At least one court has determined that adding adverts to a contracted service -in the middle of most contract periods, rather than at renewal time- that was explicitly advertised as advert-free and requiring contractees to pay an additional like 3 USD per month to remove these new adverts wasn't a breach of contract or a price increase, but was rather a "change in subscription benefits" and was A-OK.
  - JoshTriplett 15d ago
    > That will work until it very suddenly doesn't. Exactly. Once upon a time, cable didn't have ads, which was its primary advantage. Then they realized that they could charge money for the service and advertise to you.
    - simoncion 15d ago
      > Once upon a time, cable didn't have ads, which was its primary advantage. To be pedantic: originally its primary advantage was allowing people who lived in bowls and other places that couldn't get adequate TV reception to watch broadcast TV. Later on, it became a way for those paid subscribers to get access to stuff that wasn't broadcast television.
bondarchuk 15d ago
The whole world is drowning in ads, and people have by and large done nothing about it. Revealed preference is that the vast majority of people support ads.
- bix6 15d ago
  Support or tolerate or don’t realize there are alternatives?
  - c-linkage 15d ago
    Everything on the internet is free. Everyone expects everything on the internet to be free. Therefore, everything is run on ads.
    - LoganDark 15d ago
      Lots of people don't mind paying when they have money to burn. The problem is that so many people don't.
      - shepherdjerred 15d ago
        Doesn't really work in practice, even among those who can afford it. PERSON 1 Have you heard of Kagi? It’s like Google, but better, and... oh... you have to pay for it. PERSON 2 Why would I pay for something when I can use Google for free? I use Adblock anyway.
        LoganDark 15d ago
        I actually did pay for Kagi, but the results weren't nearly as good. I absolutely would pay if they were though.
    - nope1000 15d ago
      That is true but even some paid services (like Disney Plus and Amazon Prime) have ads now
ForHackernews 15d ago
OpenAI pushing ads seems like a big fat blinking SELL warning to me. They claim they are close to creating a Machine God that threatens all human life... but this is the best business plan it can come up with? Maybe your omnipotent machine could come up with that cure for cancer you keep saying it will, and then you sell that? Or design an innovative new battery? Or, hell, let's be more realistic: Why can't it make really fun iOS games that you can sell? Or generate Marvel quality blockbusters, that should bring in at least a few billion.
Jamesbeam 15d ago
I do. Are you kidding me? The ad budgets for those Agents must be enormous. I want all of this in OpenAIs pocket. Imagine at Adobe they wake up after the tokenmaxxing shock, to find they blasted through their whole 200 Mil AIds budget for the year in the first month. Would be a shame if another company’s AI breached their sandbox and manipulated the ad campaign because it hallucinated its actually an OpenAI product and AIdsmaxxing. Only to get noticed weeks later, oopsie. Thanks to the two big boys we all know no one will go to jail for that. Stuff like this happens to the best, right Dario and Sam? What they sell is trust and shovels. Their product is expected to solve problems and make companies money. Guess what? It really doesn’t, and this will be just another nail in their casket. When corporations realize they get bent over by Altman and lost millions to Agentic AIds, word is spreading fast. Well timed around an IPO this is even better. Buy cheap, then know they are going to hit their best quarter right after, which will make anyone in the know rich from all the idiots wanting to buy in at fantasy football team value. Just like the SpaceX ipo. All the fun aside, you are an absolute moron if you spend your ad budget on this. It’s way too easy for them to slurp all of that ad money through their giant agentic straw like you were the poor fuck getting his head smashed in with a bowling pin in "there will be blood". Sam is an Oil man.

by cmiles8 15d ago

outside1234 15d ago

Nobody wants this. We only need them to offer propaganda as a service and the enshitification will be complete.

daveguy 15d ago
Isn't that primarily what they offer anyway? So "subscription required" would check that box.

nbaugh1 15d ago

Who wants any ads?

deleted 15d ago
[deleted]

taytus 15d ago

>Who actually wants this? Investors

brazukadev 15d ago

> Who actually wants this? Sam Altman. It is his last resort, he said some time ago (which is not true, regulation/"slowing down the pace of AI" seems to be the latest).

hodder 15d ago

This is a solution looking for a problem, built to satisfy the creator instead of serving the buyer. This is exactly what PG warns against doing. One would think Sam would know this too.

j45 15d ago

Could be exploring old and new ways of monetization.

chunky1994 15d ago

OpenAI's shareholders, and only them. I doubt any consumer of ChatGPT wants ads, and even if they did, it would be a specific kind of ad. They specifically would not want ads if they cannot identify them as ads (like google has eventually done on the search page) or if they are not good ads.

Sherl 15d ago
If the free tier offers upgraded limits or smarter models funded by ads, I do not see the harm. Even for the paid tier, price elasticity experiments can be subdued in lieu of ad-supported tiers instead. This is all inevitable, just matter of when and how and what it takes.

deleted 15d ago

[deleted]

mym1990 15d ago

Advertisers, for one.

_menelaus 15d ago

People that don't want to pay for everyday AI, which is most people.

theptip 15d ago

Is this not just connecting you with a sales rep? If so, who wants this is literally every mainstream consumer. AFAICT the flow is click ad then get an agent that is grounded in the official sales resources. This should mean the agent has the latest and canonical product catalog, offers, etc. so the users own agent doesn’t need to search on the web. Fun ideas - can my main agent invoke these as a sub-agent, so I can get offers from multiple competitors? Can I loop them into a conversation to debate their products and observe which wins on my objective function? Concerns - of course if the harness injects (or can be prompt hacked to inject) personal information then it’s a big problem. > OpenAI claims we’re near AGI and this is the best strategy they have? Oy vey! Where did they say it’s the best? Obviously a short-term bridge strategy to drive “mundane” economic activity and juice the IPO. They are of course working on drug discovery and nuclear reactor plasma physics too. A good strategy has a portfolio of plays.

bbg2401 15d ago
> who wants this is literally every mainstream consumer. Any basis for believing this?
- theptip 15d ago
  I hyperbolize, and I apologize. But it’s a huge market segment already: NYSE:CRM, NYSE:HUBS would be some starting points. Also, just analogizing to how consumers interact with retail, you have reps you can talk to, this is a proven model for millennia, and it’s one of the big gaps in online sales. “This is not in fact a sales rep” would be a reasonable objection. “People do not want sales reps” is a weird position to take IMO.

ShadowOfThePit 15d ago

If it helps the lower tiers of ChatGPT continue being free, I'd support it.

kryogen1c 15d ago

> Who actually wants this? I mean, not to be rude to this and all sibling commenters, but obviously everyone? I feel like this comment has no basis in reality. People want things cheaper and they tolerate ads. Those two things put together means everything gets ads and gets cheaper? YouTube exists for free and costs billions to run. Companies A/B test ad tiers and paid non-ad tiers, and the results are always the same.

beering 15d ago
You’re not rude for pointing out the obvious. The parent comment is complaining in bad faith because they want to have free service in perpetuity. Similar to the people complaining about YouTube ads but the options of either paying or not watching YouTube are unimaginable.
realo 15d ago
We are not living on the same planet. I do not want cheaper, I want quality at a reasonable price. Sometimes I even accept an unreasonable price for the quality (think Apple stuff). I will never buy crap at cheapest bargain prices. Cheap clothes barely survive a couple of washes, good quality clothes survive much, much longer. Yes, they are more expensive short term, quite a bit less expensive long term. Also, not once, ever, was my buying decision influenced by an ad. What influences my decisions is the problems, the defects i will have, or not, with what I chose to buy. Usually, the longer time it works the more expensive it is.

blahblaher 15d ago

They probably have the most amount of private amount of information about "you". Ads is a logical step for them, since subscriptions, at the current price, don't pay for the costs.

royal__ 15d ago

Advertisers want this.

therealdrag0 15d ago

HN lives in a bubble. I am certain many people will happily use these.

bothers 15d ago
All but you, buddy boy. Right?
- therealdrag0 15d ago
  Some people have more diverse backgrounds than others, both in total or relative to a particular subject. A lot of people are making factual universal claims about ads in this thread that are directly contradicted by my personal experience talking to people.

jedberg 15d ago

I'll be a little contrarian here. I've actually purchased things from Instagram ads. Because they were highly targeted and actually something I wanted once I learned it existed. It was a solution to a problem I had but never researched for a solution. I'm guessing ChatGPT will be able to do the same for me, especially since it probably knows me better than Instagram at this point, just given all the things I ask it. If they do it right, it will be helpful. The big question is will they do it right.

smashed 15d ago
Well of course the ads work, that is not quite the point. If social media ads did not work, meta would not be worth over a trillion dollars. The point is do users want ads? Or more reasonably, should platforms offer a paid, ad-free, experience.
- awad 15d ago
  OpenAI does offer many paid, ad-free experiences. The vast majority of their user base, being consumers, don't take them up on it, but it's been there from pretty much day one.
cmiles8 15d ago
But Instagram ads are just billboards in digital form. The idea of influencing an AI is a whole different ballgame.
- amlib 15d ago
  It's already been so much worse, they are digital billboards most of the time presented as genuine organic content, like you and me posting in this platform. That alone has already changed the course of history, persuaded people by changing their views and made then more reactionary than ever. Whole elections were decided on this stuff. I can't begin to imagine the manipulative powers manipulative AI chatbot responses will bring.
qlte 15d ago
I heard similar anecdotes about Insta ads being the rare example of showing products that were relevant and useful, sold by a "small" business (the appearance of one at least). That seemed to peak around 2022... So I may be wrong but assumed Insta ads have now converged with the rest of e-commerce on misleading eye-catching 100% AI imagery of drop-shipped throwaway products (like those garden hose spray attachments in a tacticool pistol design or giant mugs). Is that not a problem yet?

tomjen3 15d ago

I wanted to buy a JetKVM earlier, but could not find any that I could see shipped in Europe. That would be an obvious question to ask their chatbot.

0c3ca83 15d ago

This is a test balloon; the eventual end state is going to be buying bias for model recommendations. With agentic commerce, you end up with this: > > Hey, ChatGPT, I need a new pair of shoes! > Of course, Nike has a great pair that just came out. Would you like me to purchase them for you?

juiceland 15d ago

Most people either don't care or actually like targeted ads. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411110/consumer-perceptions-targeted-ads-and-personalization-worldwide/?srsltid=AU7gw4VHDBJ1HKyYaPipe1aqQGYKwG45lTHVcAQWhHaJ1wqIjTIFHCQd https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411110/consumer-percept...

bix6 15d ago
57% of people like being reminded about stuff left in their cart? My god we are cooked.
- juiceland 15d ago
  Universally the answer I get whenever I ask non-tech people about targeted ads, the response I get is “well I want the ads to be for things I would actually buy.” I can’t get anyone to question why the ads are there to begin with.
  - Toslink 15d ago
    [dead]

LewisVerstappen 15d ago

If you don’t want it then just pay for ChatGPT. If you’re angry about it and ALSO don’t want to pay then I’m sure OpenAI doesn’t mind losing you as a customer.

joquarky 15d ago
That's not a valid argument to the "OpenAI trained on my content without compensation" crowd.
simoncion 15d ago
> If you don’t want it then just pay for ChatGPT. That will work until it very suddenly doesn't. The industry is awash in paid Internet-delivered advert-free services that suddenly got adverts stuck in them. And no, if you're in the US getting a refund for breach of contract won't likely be an option unless your contract explicitly permits you to terminate the contract and receive a refund for the unused time. At least one court has determined that adding adverts to a contracted service -in the middle of most contract periods, rather than at renewal time- that was explicitly advertised as advert-free and requiring contractees to pay an additional like 3 USD per month to remove these new adverts wasn't a breach of contract or a price increase, but was rather a "change in subscription benefits" and was A-OK.
- JoshTriplett 15d ago
  > That will work until it very suddenly doesn't. Exactly. Once upon a time, cable didn't have ads, which was its primary advantage. Then they realized that they could charge money for the service and advertise to you.
  - simoncion 15d ago
    > Once upon a time, cable didn't have ads, which was its primary advantage. To be pedantic: originally its primary advantage was allowing people who lived in bowls and other places that couldn't get adequate TV reception to watch broadcast TV. Later on, it became a way for those paid subscribers to get access to stuff that wasn't broadcast television.

bondarchuk 15d ago

The whole world is drowning in ads, and people have by and large done nothing about it. Revealed preference is that the vast majority of people support ads.

bix6 15d ago
Support or tolerate or don’t realize there are alternatives?
- c-linkage 15d ago
  Everything on the internet is free. Everyone expects everything on the internet to be free. Therefore, everything is run on ads.
  - LoganDark 15d ago
    Lots of people don't mind paying when they have money to burn. The problem is that so many people don't.
    - shepherdjerred 15d ago
      Doesn't really work in practice, even among those who can afford it. PERSON 1 Have you heard of Kagi? It’s like Google, but better, and... oh... you have to pay for it. PERSON 2 Why would I pay for something when I can use Google for free? I use Adblock anyway.
      - LoganDark 15d ago
        I actually did pay for Kagi, but the results weren't nearly as good. I absolutely would pay if they were though.
  - nope1000 15d ago
    That is true but even some paid services (like Disney Plus and Amazon Prime) have ads now

ForHackernews 15d ago

OpenAI pushing ads seems like a big fat blinking SELL warning to me. They claim they are close to creating a Machine God that threatens all human life... but this is the best business plan it can come up with? Maybe your omnipotent machine could come up with that cure for cancer you keep saying it will, and then you sell that? Or design an innovative new battery? Or, hell, let's be more realistic: Why can't it make really fun iOS games that you can sell? Or generate Marvel quality blockbusters, that should bring in at least a few billion.

Jamesbeam 15d ago

I do. Are you kidding me? The ad budgets for those Agents must be enormous. I want all of this in OpenAIs pocket. Imagine at Adobe they wake up after the tokenmaxxing shock, to find they blasted through their whole 200 Mil AIds budget for the year in the first month. Would be a shame if another company’s AI breached their sandbox and manipulated the ad campaign because it hallucinated its actually an OpenAI product and AIdsmaxxing. Only to get noticed weeks later, oopsie. Thanks to the two big boys we all know no one will go to jail for that. Stuff like this happens to the best, right Dario and Sam? What they sell is trust and shovels. Their product is expected to solve problems and make companies money. Guess what? It really doesn’t, and this will be just another nail in their casket. When corporations realize they get bent over by Altman and lost millions to Agentic AIds, word is spreading fast. Well timed around an IPO this is even better. Buy cheap, then know they are going to hit their best quarter right after, which will make anyone in the know rich from all the idiots wanting to buy in at fantasy football team value. Just like the SpaceX ipo. All the fun aside, you are an absolute moron if you spend your ad budget on this. It’s way too easy for them to slurp all of that ad money through their giant agentic straw like you were the poor fuck getting his head smashed in with a bowling pin in "there will be blood". Sam is an Oil man.