Soon, You Won't Even Know When You're Being Advertised To

Here's something urgent you need to know about OpenAI's plans for adverts.

They're introducing ads inside ChatGPT responses. Not boxed-out ads or feed interruptions we instinctively recognise as advertising.

It's possible the advertisers themselves won't know exactly what the ad will say when ChatGPT serves it up.

We won't be evaluating a product. We'll be getting advice that promotes a product, paid for by its producer.

You can see how this works innocuously enough — ask for 'shoes like these' with a photo after a night out.

But you don't have to think hard to see how it works dangerously. Corporate interests routinely align with harm — junk food, tobacco, gambling. The persuasive capacity of LLMs to shape how we see the world is already proven.
I'm not anti-advertising. I quite like getting prompts to explore products I might enjoy, and I don't mind personalisation (even if I do mind the business models that drive it).

But this breaks a social contract that's pretty much survived the entire history of advertising: advertise all you like, but tell us you're doing it.

A technology used by hundreds of millions of people to shape their worldview, available to the highest bidder with no transparency? That's alarming.

We need to keep adverts and advice separate. We need new standards. Fast.