How do many of the AI startups make money? Many have launched products that are freely available and without ads. There are multiple answers to the question, depending on the business’ strategy. Some want growth at all costs to sell the business later on. Others plan to introduce ads or subscriptions at a later point in time.
Soon, users from all over the world will see more ads in chats with AIs, as Google is expanding its Adsense program to chats.
Bloomberg reports that Google is expanding Adsense to keep its edge in the advertising vertical. Tests with select startups such as iAsk and Liner have begun already reportedly.
New types of AI-powered services spring up virtually everywhere on the Internet. Liner, for example, is an AI-powered search engine, while iAsk promises answers to questions that users may have.
Most services have in common that they are not page-based websites. Blogs or regular websites publish static pages most of the time, whereas interactions with AI are usually dynamic.
While companies may display Adsense on the pages, they were not particularly optimized for the queries of users. This changes with the rollout of the new Adsense format.
Integration means that ads may show up in chats. Where and how depends on the AI service, but users should expect to see an increase in advertisement, especially on AI sites that are not operated by billion Dollar companies.
Good news is that content blockers should be able to deal with those ads, just like they are regarding ads in search or on websites.
Now You: do you use AI services regularly? If so, for what purpose and what do you like or dislike in particular when you compare the AI service to other means of acquiring the information?
I do nt use AI and remove any software and applications that have an AI in them that cannot be completely disabled.
Ads, ads, ads … reminds me Monty Python’s spam, spam, spam …
As far as I’m concerned, if I cannot avoid advertisement I avoid the Website. But uBlock Origin does a nice work with flexibility allowing deep and fine tuning.
Do I use AI services regularly? Regularly, no. The only AI chatbot I occasionally visit is Duckduckgo’s. Far enough for my needs which go from finding a regex to asking the difference between romanticism and sentimentalism, far from faking a pic or video 🙂
I do happen to visit as well a so-called AI Search engine, mainly for having a quick summary on a personality, an AI Search engine named Deepfind. Some may qualify it as rudimentary compared to the bells and whistles of the leaders of the AI band but, again, I don’t dress up when the aim is to buy bread : like teachers when those, too qualified, may lack simplicity and feed up an undergraduate with mathematical lyricism far beyond his reach, see what I mean?
Perhaps a lack of ambition but at my age it’s too late 😉
Will they at least mark ads as ads? If ads will be embedded in the AI answer as “go there to get complete solution to your question”, they could be more annoying than usual ads.
Yes, good point Boris. There has to be a way of differentiating between truth and fiction where AI is concerned and if that aspect isn’t included then everything has to be taken with a large spoonful of salt.
As much as AI will eventually be fine-tuned (hopefully) it’s still not the same as conversing with a human being. For example, how can one be sure that the results AI provides are honest? They could just be a manipulation of something the AI owner wants you to believe rather than just a complete pack of lies.
Take an article on the BBC news site this morning showing how people of color who are also US citizens are being targeted with fake images purportedly showing how fond they are of Donald Trump in order to boost his popularity among black voters. At first glance they are entirely credible, but in reality the images were created by AI: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68440150 That is truly dangerous since Trump is intent on demolishing democracy in the US and if voters can be manipulated into thinking that he is the answer to their dreams then there’s no hope for the future.
And what of AI itself? I’m reminded of an experiment in which the algorithm has been convinced that human beings are a threat to its existence after which it endeavours to find a way of destroying the human race: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=g7YJIpkk7KM (I used Invidious for privacy reasons, but you can switch the link to youtube if you prefer). Scary stuff in any event.