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  • So here in the states (for now) there's an actual rule that ads on service sights (such as news sites) have to be stated and made evident they are in fact ads. WSJ isn't allowed to post an article that is really a commercial.

    So one of the effects this may lead to is acceleration in the development of visual adblockers, which identify ads by their positioning on the site rather than from their servers, what's been a long running project since Google has been trying to figure out how to stealth ads so they don't come directly from the ad servers (even though this gums up their analysis computations).

    Now for the time being, laws against commercial shenanigans are not strongly enforced, so they may get away with using AI to fold ads into news articles, although that may have side effects like end-users associating Folgers Crystals (Instant Coffee) with the latest rampage shooting, much the way that Twitter/X sponsors are getting their products associated with white supremacist rhetoric.

    Commercials blended seamlessly into content risk the content not being brand-safe, which drives moderation of social media far more than public preferences.

    It seems like neither marketers nor webservice providers know what they're doing, and so mixing AI into their efforts for more clicks and more buy-ins is going to lead to some exciting absurd consequences.

  • You can likely rest very well assured that when BigCorp overlords saw the dystopian shit in movies like Demolition Man, RoboCop, Idiocracy, etc., their eyes lit up with a horrid glow and they told each other, “This is brilliant! We absolutely must make this happen!”

  • I am not browsing anything which has ads anyways, I don’t even watch tv anymore

    Edit to clarify what I mean by “tv”, I mean anything including streaming services. I just watch movies, and I am thinking of just using a projector and a wall. Not sure why I even have a physical tv anymore

80 comments