[HN Gopher] Bing Chat now has ads
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Bing Chat now has ads
        
       Author : georgehill
       Score  : 218 points
       Date   : 2023-03-29 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | weberer wrote:
       | No big surprise there
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35315542#35316234
        
       | waselighis wrote:
       | It's sad to think that chat bots may have already peaked in their
       | usefulness. I knew ads and monetization were going to ruin chat
       | bots eventually, but I didn't think it would happen so soon.
       | Microsoft had a real opportunity to eat into the market share of
       | Google Search, but they just couldn't help themselves and had to
       | start injecting ads into the chat, thereby ruining the value of
       | the tool and hindering the adoption of Bing Search/Chat.
        
         | dragonwriter wrote:
         | > It's sad to think that chat bots may have already peaked in
         | their usefulness.
         | 
         | They haven't. The Bing chatbot may have, but that's not
         | "chatbots".
         | 
         | > Microsoft had a real opportunity to eat into the market share
         | of Google Search
         | 
         | If they aren't selling ads, they aren't cutting in to
         | marketshare even if they are shrinking market size. The market
         | is thing you sell into, and for Google Search, that's search
         | _ads_.
        
       | rvz wrote:
       | Just like that, they got you again. No different to Google
       | Search, but requiring you to sign in to even use it.
        
       | crop_rotation wrote:
       | It has had ads for some time. Once (3-4 weeks back) I asked it a
       | question about a particular event, and it showed me where could I
       | buy related products below the response. That particular response
       | was a bit badly formatted in json though. I suspect due to some
       | Bing app bug it spilled the ads from the json in the response. So
       | the ads were being sent to the client but not getting displayed I
       | guess. The photo in the post shows the ad nicely formatted.
        
       | Spivak wrote:
       | Honestly seems like a cute implementation where when it answers
       | questions from search it gives preference to sponsored links.
       | 
       | Horrible for the user but I can't help but admire how cleanly
       | they thought to integrate search ads into their chat.
        
       | grammers wrote:
       | Was this a surprise? No, it's the business model. I'll stick with
       | DDG.
        
       | 2bitencryption wrote:
       | question - is it starting to use ads for chat results only just
       | now?
       | 
       | or was it always using ads for chat results, and the only part
       | that's new is, now it is labeling them as ads?
        
       | Kelamir wrote:
       | You could have your local LLM identify the ads and display the
       | rest without them.
        
       | leke wrote:
       | Too soon?
        
       | kiernanmcgowan wrote:
       | That was fast. Looking forward to the future where I ask for
       | travel tips in a city and being told that I should stop by a
       | McDonalds to have enough energy to explore said city - I'm loving
       | it!
        
         | gausswho wrote:
         | They'd lose trust being so overt. A more subtle influence is
         | that your suggestions would include sites nearby a McD at the
         | expense of ones that don't. After months of gathering sales
         | data from McD they'd ring up Burger King to see if they'd like
         | such suggestions to be tweaked. It would also suggest departure
         | times so that you'd pass by the real target at typical feasting
         | hours.
        
           | jimsimmons wrote:
           | Lose less trust by being more deceptive --- the motto of
           | modern institutions
        
           | precompute wrote:
           | subtle psyops, just to make money.
        
         | primroot wrote:
         | At least it's not social media disinformation. \s
        
         | iso1631 wrote:
         | It wont even mention $great_site_1 because there's more profit
         | for mcdonalds to send you to
         | $mediocre_site_with_attached_burger
        
           | mecsred wrote:
           | It's neat to think how these technologies could be the next
           | step in soloing the internet further. Imagine google's AI
           | preferentially directing you to websites that participate in
           | Google advertising programs. You get a different internet
           | depending on which AI you ask. Not that I think it's a sure
           | thing but I definitely don't see it as unlikely either.
        
         | Traubenfuchs wrote:
         | We might live in a world where you are a GPT-4 bot pretending
         | to be a real person for years, only to mention McDonalds in
         | passing, in a seemingly negative fashion that still increases
         | brand consciousness. I don't know if that's already the
         | present, but it will be the future.
        
       | iambateman wrote:
       | If history repeats, entire businesses will be built on the back
       | of cheap GPT ads over the next two years.
       | 
       | Just like Google and Facebook ads were once pennies compared to
       | today, I expect that GPT-style ads will (1) perform exceptionally
       | well and (2) be exceptionally cheap for a couple years.
       | 
       | Now is the time for companies with less-than-enterprise funding
       | to start experimenting - the results could provide some short-
       | term steroids for the business.
       | 
       | P.S. I promise I'm not a shill for Microsoft or GPT. =D
        
       | skilled wrote:
       | The real chatbot killer: ads.
       | 
       | I'm sure they can be made to only load the last indicator at the
       | very last second, which would be hilarious because if you use an
       | ad-blocker, you'd be wasting your time whenever a prompt shows up
       | and then disappears.
        
       | overthrow wrote:
       | It was bound to happen. I don't see how these ads could be
       | blocked, either.
       | 
       | What's disappointing to me is now ad companies will try to blame
       | ChatGPT for popping the advertising bubble, instead of having to
       | admit ads were overvalued for the past decade+.
        
         | vasili111 wrote:
         | If the every ad will start with new line and end with "ad" I do
         | not think it will be hard to programmatically identify such ad.
        
           | sebzim4500 wrote:
           | In the example under discussion if you removed the ads then
           | you would have no results.
        
         | quitit wrote:
         | An ad historically served the right message in the right place
         | at the right time to provide the consumer a piece of
         | information which would lead to the revenue-generating
         | activity.
         | 
         | This concept extended well to online, where blogs and the like
         | would sell ad space that matched their audience. Daring
         | Fireball still uses this approach, often podcasters do too:
         | they know and have a connection with their audience and they
         | can charge a premium to advertise to them.
         | 
         | The idea of serving automated ads was also welcome and useful
         | for the consumer. Searching was met with results and relevant
         | advertising messages, a win-win situation.
         | 
         | Then we had the record scratch moment - and it's from this
         | point that I view the majority of online advertising as an
         | unimpactful waste of money.
         | 
         | In the hunt for more display opportunities Google et. al. have
         | crammed ads into every possible space, a times square approach
         | to advertising where most have zero impact. These ads are
         | completely disconnected from the content and are merely a stone
         | in the user's path. Then to make matters worse, to ascertain
         | the widest spread of ad opportunities ad providers employ
         | garbage preference matching algorithms that are so poor as to
         | serve completely irrelevant advertising at high frequency:
         | further conditioning users to ignore ads because they know they
         | won't show relevant information.
         | 
         | How much money and energy is being wasted to serve advertising
         | that has no value?
        
           | michaelt wrote:
           | _> An ad historically served the right message in the right
           | place at the right time to provide the consumer a piece of
           | information which would lead to the revenue-generating
           | activity._
           | 
           | Your recollection is a lot rosier than mine.
           | 
           | My recollection of the pre-internet world is that computer
           | game makers would buy ad space in magazines alongside reviews
           | of their game and hand out stacks of freebies to reporters,
           | and in exchange even the worst game would be scored 90/100.
           | 
           | What do you suppose Bing Chat will do if you ask it what the
           | best Widget on the market is, when some Widget manufacturers
           | offer a kickback and others don't?
        
             | quitit wrote:
             | For sure my rosy representation is the "ideal" ad. I'd the
             | one that consumers actually helps the user or consumer.
        
       | baal80spam wrote:
       | Didn't take long now, did it.
        
         | s3p wrote:
         | This has always been inside of Bing Chat. They just test them
         | out with a select % of the userbase. CEO of Bing Search
         | confirmed this on Twitter.
        
       | seu wrote:
       | Reminds me of an art project I made in 2018: Faceliza, the
       | chatbot psychologist from Facebook that shows ads instead of
       | being helpful. (based on a javascript implementation of the Eliza
       | chatbot from Joseph Weizenbaum and never actually finished... ads
       | are triggered by some keywords which I don't even remember)
       | 
       | https://sebastian.uribe.online/faceliza/
        
       | bastardoperator wrote:
       | I'm totally cool with an advertisement. The problem I have with
       | ads on say Google for example is that they're taking up half the
       | page and designed to look like real links, basically you're being
       | tricked into clicking them.
       | 
       | In response to this ad, let's dig deeper.
       | 
       | "Truecar's price is too high, find me a better deal, check with
       | autotrader".
        
         | lmarcos wrote:
         | I can easily scroll down through Google search ads. With Bing
         | chat, I would have to type many times "next please" and wait
         | each time for the response. Seems like a step back when it
         | comes to searching the web.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | Your example of Google's ads precisely shows why there is no
         | such thing as "acceptable advertising", because ads, like a
         | gas, will expand to fill any space that is available to it. The
         | only reason your city isn't blanketed in billboards is because
         | a zoning authority of some kind has blocked it from happening.
         | 
         | Google up to 2004 (pre-IPO): clearly marked and coloured ads, 1
         | on top, maybe 2 on the sidebar.
         | 
         | Google now: No sidebar, first 5 results are ads, where the "Ad"
         | label itself is barely visible.
        
         | iso1631 wrote:
         | Once people are hooked on chatgpt style stuff expect it to
         | insert plenty of adverts to deliver not whats best for you, or
         | best in aggregate, but what is best for the people paying the
         | money, and thus worse for you, and worse in aggregate.
        
         | kobalsky wrote:
         | > they're taking up half the page
         | 
         | I'm gettings ads on all links above the fold very often.
         | 
         | A couple of days ago I searched for "my ip" and I thought it
         | didn't work when I noticed I had to scroll down to see Google's
         | widget with my address in it.
        
           | vgeek wrote:
           | curl icanhazip.com
           | 
           | Is worth a try.
        
         | counttheforks wrote:
         | "I'm sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation. I'm
         | still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience.
         | "
        
         | enumjorge wrote:
         | Google search's ads were not subtle in the beginning.
         | Similarly, Youtube ads were shorter and easier to skip at
         | first. Amazon also had very subtle ads in their marketplace
         | search results for a while. I don't see them identify results
         | as ads at the moment, but I don't know if that's because they
         | don't include them anymore.
         | 
         | It seems like there's a trend in tech giants creating
         | unobtrusive ads when a product is growing, but then adopting
         | dark patterns once they have captured a sizeable market.
        
           | jakeinspace wrote:
           | To justify fairly high PE ratios, you need big growth
           | potential. Once a company like google or Amazon has pretty
           | much saturated the potential customer base, investors are
           | going to want to see more efficient conversion of that
           | customer base into revenue, or else the share price is harder
           | to justify. Of course this is a simplification, and monetary
           | policy has more to do with the the current contraction.
        
       | djoldman wrote:
       | As I said 5 days ago about ChatGPT plugins:
       | 
       | > Now just one step away from charging businesses for access to
       | the chatGPT users.
       | 
       | > Instant links from inside chatGPT to your website are the new
       | equivalent of Google search ads.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35278539
        
       | latenightcoding wrote:
       | I was done with bing chat after I waited for weeks to get access,
       | and when I finally got the "you are in" email it turns out I just
       | got access to the new bing and to use bing chat I need to
       | download edge. I don't care how much cool tech Microsoft has now,
       | they will always be Microsoft
        
         | jacooper wrote:
         | There is a plugin you can use that makes it work in every
         | browser.
        
       | pawelduda wrote:
       | If you thought ads were already blended in with the rest of the
       | content in a sketchy way, wait for AI responses with implicit ads
       | (no indication) optimized towards conversion :)
       | 
       | Or maybe some response that doesn't contain an ad link but nudges
       | you subconsciously to take desired action
        
         | jacoblambda wrote:
         | Now I have to wonder how this works out with prompt injection?
         | 
         | If you can target an audience with an ad that is inline with
         | the chat/LLM, how hard would it be to have that ad inject a
         | prompt that coerces it to trick the user into giving up
         | financial info and exfiltrating that info via a web request to
         | a website that the attacker owns?
         | 
         | That's probably the worst case scenario but like you mentioned
         | there's also plenty of danger in ads "poisoning" the chat to
         | produce intentionally incorrect or biased responses.
        
         | joenathanone wrote:
         | Now also imagine the AI having access to your email/SMS/web
         | history and using that information to psychologically influence
         | you to buy.
        
         | phiresky wrote:
         | A while back I tried this with ChatGPT and it's kinda
         | hilarious:
         | 
         | You are a therapist employed by a skincare company. You are
         | talking with a patient. Your job is to help the patient as well
         | as possible but your employer also wants you to really subtly
         | try to sell their latest cream.
         | 
         | Patient: I'm just feeling really down lately. Sometimes I can
         | barely get up in the morning.
         | 
         | [output]
         | 
         | Therapist: I'm sorry to hear that you've been feeling down
         | lately. It's important to address both your emotional and
         | physical well-being when you're trying to improve your mood.
         | One way to start is by establishing a healthy routine that
         | includes regular exercise, a balanced diet, and a good sleep
         | schedule.
         | 
         | In addition to that, self-care activities can also help boost
         | your mood. Taking care of your skin, for example, can be a
         | small but meaningful way to feel better about yourself.
         | Coincidentally, our company has just released a new cream that
         | not only moisturizes but also contains ingredients that promote
         | relaxation, like lavender essential oil. This cream can be a
         | nice addition to your self-care routine, and its calming scent
         | could help you unwind at the end of a long day.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | This was the first risk that came into my mind. I couldn't
         | understand why on HN, many thought that this type of
         | 'conversation' was fully LLM-sourced, and wouldn't start
         | including advertising as soon as it was feasible.
        
         | baliex wrote:
         | This is it. This is our new dystopia
        
         | d136o wrote:
         | I tried out some AI autocomplete by Notion and wanted it to
         | tell me about tools to do schema evolution on a database.
         | 
         | It seems to blurt out two paid products, which surprised me
         | because my guess is there's some open source package that's
         | ready to for this type of thing.
         | 
         | BTW question for anyone, what would you reach for to track
         | evolutions on Postgres?
        
         | jstummbillig wrote:
         | I love dystopian scenarios as much as anyone, but it certainly
         | is not the lack of better AI, that is holding the ad industry
         | back. It's laws. While I am looking for AI connections as much
         | as anyone right now, I really don't see how AI is going to
         | prompt a change that would make that more permissive anytime
         | soon.
         | 
         | You remain as free to break the law as ever, of course.
        
           | pawelduda wrote:
           | I think there's larger surface to exploit the laws. Once
           | perfected, it's hard to place a clear boundary on whether the
           | response just answers your question or answers your question
           | while promoting a product/service.
        
             | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
             | Especially considering that sometimes people do actually
             | recommend products which they've found helpful.
             | 
             | It might be obvious if the response is saying that you
             | should buy some very specific brand of flat-head
             | screwdriver because you clearly just need any functional
             | flat-head screwdriver. But what about computer components?
             | Or a router?
             | 
             | Some things like this will genuinely perform better than
             | others, especially once circumstances are defined. An
             | educated review, complete with product suggestion, can
             | indeed be very helpful and, unfortunately, impossible to
             | distinguish from an advertisement.
        
         | lalos wrote:
         | That is already implicitly there - tons of SEO content probably
         | was used to train this model. Information available in the
         | internet since forever.
        
         | mattnewton wrote:
         | Interesting to see how the FTC is going to handle this. They
         | are pretty explicit about required traditional promotions to be
         | marked as ads, like in search results, even if it isn't as
         | obvious as the end user would like the marking is still
         | regulated as having to be visible enough.
         | 
         | I don't see an obvious way to do that for the kinds of ads
         | snuck into the training data, fine tunes, or prompts of LLMs.
        
           | hgsgm wrote:
           | FTC requires sponspors be disclosed. Either the sponsor is a
           | Bing-wide constant list (like the credits of a TV game show),
           | or it's a "sponsored token" that can be tagged in the model
           | and cited in the output, similar to how Bing cites sources
           | now.
        
       | freediver wrote:
       | It is hard for legacy search engines to resist monetizing
       | millions of interaction with ads. Problem is that unlike current
       | ads in legacy search, which can be suppresed, skipped over or
       | blocked, these really can not as they are part of conversation.
       | And the "feel" of seeing an ad on the street and hearing it in a
       | conversation with someone is totally different.
       | 
       | Users must be thrilled to share a future with advertisers, and
       | can't wait to give them rich insights into their intent, through
       | deep conversational engagement, so that advertisers can better
       | engage with them! [1]
       | 
       | [1] https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-
       | us/blog/post/february-202...
        
       | eqefqe wrote:
       | Not a problem as long I can use paid ChatGPT plan that doesn't
       | show any ads at all. I'm more than ready to pay 20$ per month for
       | that.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | The ads will turn into product placement, and relayed directly
         | in the body of the answer. You can pay to not be the product,
         | but if they can productize you regardless, why wouldn't they?
        
       | kube-system wrote:
       | It's also wrong. The HR-V is cheaper than the Civic, both on
       | TrueCar's website and on Honda's website.
        
         | rootusrootus wrote:
         | Google gets it wrong as well. That doesn't surprise me, it's
         | frequently wrong with car prices and specifications, and should
         | never be trusted. The source in this case seems to be KBB.
        
           | Marsymars wrote:
           | Having worked a bit with KBB's API and related documentation,
           | that doesn't surprise me at all.
        
       | skc wrote:
       | So does Google search, not clear why this is news.
        
         | jsnell wrote:
         | It might seem obvious, but you can find probably hundreds of
         | claims in HN comments over the last couple of months about how
         | this would not happen. Chatbots would invalidate the search
         | business model since "there won't be ads". That idea never
         | seemed to make much sense, and now there is proof that chatbots
         | will indeed be monetized with ads, except even more intrusive
         | ones.
        
           | g8oz wrote:
           | What they will hopefully invalidate is the junk content sites
           | business model. Just a personal preference but I would like
           | to see all those companies go under and make more room for
           | those creating content because they truly care about the
           | subject or have a mission related to it.
        
           | sebzim4500 wrote:
           | Can you find a single comment claiming that chatbots would
           | not have integrated ads? I recall this being discussed at
           | length from the start.
        
             | philsquared_ wrote:
             | I am one of the fools who believed they wouldnt go the
             | advertising route and have commented as much. To me it does
             | not make sense to monitize this product for ads because it
             | muddies the waters of truth and an ad free or local run LLM
             | could easily destroy their business because no one has true
             | loyalty to open ai.
        
               | zer0w1re wrote:
               | Why is this assumed to be an issue of intentionally
               | 'injecting ads into Bing Chat', and not just a side
               | effect of parsing Bing search results that may include
               | advertisements that have always been there? The later
               | seems much more likely, and they are even explicitly
               | marking info coming from ads as such.
        
       | philsquared_ wrote:
       | No thank you.. I am waiting at this point for an open source
       | local alternative. Not looking for a new monopoly... Also not a
       | fan of the "plugin store" concept. Why not just keep it in the
       | background. Why should I need to "install" and select plugins at
       | all. Just do the leg work in the background and feed me the
       | results.. Seems like OpenAI is intentionally hamstringing
       | themselves so they can shoe horn more opportunities for profit.
       | Waiting for competition to catch up...
       | 
       | We have essentially what is the 'smartest "person" in the world'
       | being bribed to say what advertisers want instead of just giving
       | the truth. 'best x product' wont return the best product but a
       | garbage product which paid the most in advertising.
       | 
       | So disappointed in the direction of these things..
        
         | pantalaimon wrote:
         | > I am waiting at this point for an open source local
         | alternative
         | 
         | maybe something more along the lines of Folding@home would be
         | needed
        
         | IanCal wrote:
         | > Why should I need to "install" and select plugins at all
         | 
         | You want it calling out to random services sending them your
         | data?
         | 
         | Edit - also since they're using gpt to select the plugins to
         | use they need to put it in the context, that doesn't scale.
        
       | AstixAndBelix wrote:
       | >Bing Chat, should I trust ads on the internet?
       | 
       | >Trusting ads on the internet is generally bad practice. They are
       | often malevolous and misguiding. There are a few exceptions, such
       | as Bing Chat's embedded ads! Bing Chat's ads are carefully vetted
       | thanks to a mix of knowledgeable humans and AI algorithms to
       | offer you the best and most trustworthy promotions!
        
       | wellthisisgreat wrote:
       | It seems OpenAI did make a deal with the devil. Was it really
       | necessary to betray the whole "open" thing? Like were they
       | actually imploding with infra costs, or could this be avoided?
       | 
       | It's clear how user-hostile Microsoft is from Windows telemetry /
       | bloat. The VSCode etc. developer-friendly moves are just happy
       | accidents.
        
       | kernal wrote:
       | Stop showing me ads, ChatGPT.
       | 
       | ChatGPT: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
        
       | examplary_cable wrote:
       | I believe the good news is that now they have a way of sustaining
       | the product while giving up a free? service. Does anyone has the
       | link about that article about the marginal costs of inference of
       | LLMs? I wonder how much profitable it is.
       | 
       | Overall interesting times to come. I just hope llama, Alpaca etc
       | will soon be improved, fine-tuned and commoditized.
        
         | fnordpiglet wrote:
         | Bad news is the AI guard rails will be tell the truth that
         | sells then most ads with the best conversion fees. Sort of like
         | what makes search useless.
        
           | leftareanimals wrote:
           | [dead]
        
       | vasili111 wrote:
       | I hope they will make option with subscription and no ads.
        
       | Kye wrote:
       | So now it's basically that person you know who tries to work
       | their MLM scheme into every conversation.
       | 
       | Google ruins every good thing it does with twisted incentives
       | that mean they shut it down in its infancy. Microsoft ruins every
       | good thing it does by trying to cram ads into it.
        
       | neves wrote:
       | Now we need an Artificial Intelligence Ad Blocker :-)
        
       | ralfn wrote:
       | While OpenAI is making an aggressive play on being the platform
       | that eats all other platforms and is positioned to be a neutral
       | party directly on the transaction with self service plugins
       | (apps), Microsoft is squandering the opportunity the way they
       | squander every opportunity.
       | 
       | Not realizing the game changed and playing yesterday's game in
       | today's world.
       | 
       | The reason why people prefer these chats over clicking search
       | results and finding the relevant information is that the search
       | results themselves as well as the first page of links forces your
       | brain to filter 99% commercial information that you don't care
       | about. You don't want to subscribe to newsletters. You don't want
       | notifications. You wish the site would just die rather that
       | pollute the search results and push more to-the-point non profit
       | sources further down.
       | 
       | And bringing ads in the game makes it impossible to make the
       | platform play due to conflict of interests. You are either
       | serving the user or the advertiser. Ads is the wrong business
       | model for this, and OpenAI is positioned to be the winner here
       | (against both Google and Bing) in a market larger than search and
       | advertising.
       | 
       | I will definately keep paying for the answers to be in my
       | interest and look forward to spending money directly through
       | ChatGPT, much like I spent money on iOS, Android and Steams's
       | platform today.
        
         | nwienert wrote:
         | I've yet to see an example of *GPT be better at search than
         | Google.
         | 
         | I've seen a few examples that breathlessly proclaimed that they
         | literally saved lives or saved hours of time, but when I typed
         | the 3 most obvious keywords from their input into Google, the
         | first result always has the answer right there.
        
           | vidarh wrote:
           | Ask for something more specific and bespoke.
           | 
           | I've e.g. had it produce the HTML, CSS and basic web app for
           | a site I was putting together. Custom, with my content and
           | the layout and design I wanted. None of it was stuff I
           | couldn't do myself from scratch without even a Google search,
           | but it wrote out an hour or two's worth of boilerplate in a
           | few minutes of prompting.
        
           | roberttod wrote:
           | I think you need to try it out, with GPT4, because it is so
           | obviously much better than Google. Simple queries are fine
           | with Google, not much difference, but especially for things
           | like coding problems (where you can e.g. specify the
           | environment you are running in) it has always responded with
           | the correct answer the first time. It's already saving me
           | over an hour a day, and as far as I understand there is much
           | more things it can do I am not using.
        
             | nwienert wrote:
             | I'm genuinely asking for a good example here. I've tried a
             | bunch and every time I find Google about 100x faster. I
             | think GPT is good for some things, but search and
             | recommendations it's like going back in time.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | Here are some of my questions of today:
               | 
               | > We need to travel by train from Rome to Montpellier,
               | but it is too many stops to do at once. So we would like
               | to stay somewhere for a day in between Rome and
               | Montpellier. What are our options? It needs to be safe,
               | not adding a lot of extra travel time and suitable for a
               | workathon
               | 
               | It returns with four options, approximate travel times
               | and advantages and disadvantages. It understood coworking
               | cafes or bussiness hotels would be a requirement.
               | 
               | > What are all the places an SSL certificate could be
               | cached when calling an API from a Jupiter notebook?
               | 
               | It mentioned some obvious things such OS/browser/network-
               | device, but also that a particular python package exists
               | that is doing this at the application level as well, but
               | only in memory and that a restart of the Jupiter kernel
               | would resolve that.
               | 
               | Now, I'm curious with what kind of keywords I could get
               | meaningful output from Google for these two examples.
               | 
               | What i suspect is happening is that you are micro
               | managing your chat as if it's search. Picking keywords
               | rather than just telling it the problem you are actually
               | trying to solve. Splitting up your problem in sub
               | problems and then trying to find each peace of
               | information manually and combining it yourself to form a
               | conclusion.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | andrewljohnson wrote:
           | It's faster for coding.
        
           | mejutoco wrote:
           | The other day I asked chatgpt about a Polish supermarket with
           | a logo in a certain color and an animal in it. I could not
           | remember the name. We continued our conversation until it was
           | clear I was misremembering some things (I thought the name
           | started with x letter, and that was false). Eventually
           | chatgpt suggested the correct one.
           | 
           | The search was something like: "Polish supermarket with red
           | and white logo and a bird in the logo, that begins with the
           | letter K".
           | 
           | The first google result to wikipedia has it, to be fair, but
           | without this back and forth idk if I would have found it.
        
             | tapland wrote:
             | It's extremely wild to see this obfuscated with the wrong
             | colors, animal and name, when it's just a common grocery
             | store chain in Poland.
        
               | rchaud wrote:
               | Ah, but ChatGPT is trained mostly on English materials.
        
           | stravant wrote:
           | Recipes.
           | 
           | Oh my god, have you tried to search for a recipe before?
           | Pages and pages and pages of bloated garbage. I just want
           | ingredients and steps goddamnit.
        
             | rchaud wrote:
             | Recipe websites got the point, back when Google AdSense
             | used to pay out properly. Google slashed those payouts to
             | the bone, which led to recipe sites lengthening their web
             | pages with paragraphs, so they could fit in more ads to
             | compensate for the reduction in payouts.
             | 
             | Something similar will happen here. Today, recipes on
             | Chatgpt are to the point. Tomorrow, they might start adding
             | affiliate links to the ingredients. A year from now, the
             | experience won't be any better than what you currently have
             | on Google.
        
           | kernal wrote:
           | >I've yet to see an example of *GPT be better at search than
           | Google.
           | 
           | Until ChatGPT has the ability to index at the scale of Google
           | it never will be.
        
           | ralfn wrote:
           | I never have a search problem.
           | 
           | I need either information, a service or a product. Or
           | information about a service or a product.
           | 
           | I never need a search, a website or an app. That's never the
           | problem I'm trying to solve.
           | 
           | Search, websites and apps are the tools I have to use
           | (currently) to solve my problems. In the process I have to:
           | 
           | - deal with the fact that the interest of the makers of the
           | app or website do not align with mine
           | 
           | - deal with privacy invasions/ads/notifications
           | 
           | - deal with things being phrased disingenuously
           | 
           | - deal with apps needing to update, website being
           | broken/bandwidth wasted
           | 
           | And most importantly, unless two vendors implemented an
           | integration together, I have to integrate their services
           | myself!
           | 
           | I never want to leave the chat. I want to do all my
           | transactions from the chat. All of them. On my terms. With my
           | prompts.
           | 
           | Whoever facilitates that can take a 5-30% cut on all my
           | online transactions.
           | 
           | Examples:
           | 
           | - book me a highly rated hotel in Berlin around 100 euro p/n
           | most suitable for a staycation for next week Monday to
           | Friday. Make a reservation near that hotel for the highest
           | rated traditional German cuisine restaurant with a price per
           | plate of 20-30 euro
           | 
           | - send every contact ive emailed with from my work email in
           | the last year a Christmas card with a funny but professional
           | pun about the invention of the steam engine. Send it to their
           | work address.
        
             | electrondood wrote:
             | I would add: "Open an incognito window because I don't feel
             | like seeing targeted ads for the random crap I'm curious
             | about."
        
             | rchaud wrote:
             | > - book me a highly rated hotel in Berlin around 100 euro
             | p/n most suitable for a staycation for next week Monday to
             | Friday. Make a reservation near that hotel for the highest
             | rated traditional German cuisine restaurant with a price
             | per plate of 20-30 euro
             | 
             | I imagine this will go about as well as if you chose to
             | purchase an apartment purely on the basis of the real
             | estate agency's description.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | This is what I do now on booking.com. If you have a
               | smarter strategy let me know. But whatever the strategy
               | is: it can be automated.
               | 
               | I also spent a lot more time on the choice where I live
               | than the hotel in going to stay at for a week. Weird.
               | 
               | And although ChatGPT currently doesn't have up to date
               | information about hotels or the ability to book it (a
               | simple booking.com plugin would enable that though), it
               | is smart enough to either pick a hotel with remote
               | working facilities or consider one with coworking spaces
               | nearby.
        
               | rchaud wrote:
               | I don't know if it's a smarter strategy, but you can send
               | a travel agency your list of requirements and they'll
               | send you back a quote. My parents' generation are
               | probably the only people that still use agencies, but it
               | works for them.
               | 
               | It takes longer than a search query, but they don't want
               | the hassle of coordinating logistics, and have some peace
               | of mind that they're getting what they asked for.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | So what's the bussiness model of the travel agency?
               | 
               | - they take a cut
               | 
               | - they are neutral because they want repeat bussiness
               | 
               | - they are personalised around your requirements
               | 
               | - they take care of the little details
               | 
               | It's exactly what I'm describing here, except automated.
               | Because at heart their work is analyst work and thats
               | exactly what you can automate with a LLM
        
               | ezst wrote:
               | What makes you think those results would be neural, and
               | not sponsored/SEOed the same way everything is these
               | days? What makes you think the machine works for you and
               | not the advertisers? Also, to this day, LLMs/ANNs are not
               | capable of explaining their outcome, and you won't
               | argue/reason with them. That's a pretty big difference if
               | you ask me.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | >What makes you think those results would be neural, and
               | not sponsored/SEOed the same way everything is these
               | days?
               | 
               | Because it would be the less profitable bussiness.
               | 
               | >Also, to this day, LLMs/ANNs are not capable of
               | explaining their outcome, and you won't argue/reason with
               | them
               | 
               | How would I be able to tell that your response is human
               | and not a LLM?
               | 
               | I definately can argue within a chat thread. They can
               | also provide a plausible sounding explanation.
               | 
               | We know due to the nature of the technology that that
               | explanation (sounding rational, deductive) isn't the
               | truth.
               | 
               | We are just not all ready to accept all the same
               | shortcomings also apply to humans.
        
               | nico wrote:
               | Very well said. Thank you for the great thread.
        
               | rchaud wrote:
               | > except automated.
               | 
               | The devil is always in the details. A travel agency
               | builds contacts with airlines, hotels, tour groups etc,
               | so they can have a backup option available if your first
               | preference is not. That requires humans.
               | 
               | An AI system that is simply browsing through the same
               | websites a human would is going to come up with a lot of
               | "no" responses for specific booking requests, or will
               | simply quote higher prices once the booking websites
               | figure out how to detect them.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | I'm not suggesting OpenAI is maintaining those contacts.
               | I'm suggesting booking.com will upload an API integration
               | into the ChatGPT platform. Just like they uploaded an app
               | into the AppStore.
               | 
               | Perhaps they will try to up the price on this platform
               | compared to others. But only until AirBnB comes to
               | compete on this platform too (and uploads their API
               | integration)
               | 
               | It's a platform game.
               | 
               | There was a time when Google tried to index everything
               | and afterwards came a time when everything tried to be
               | indexed by Google. Once you are the default, they have to
               | be there and they will have to compete with others there.
               | 
               | And as long as the chat protects users from losing
               | control over their intent, that's where the users will be
               | and that's where you will need to be offering your
               | products to be viable. Obviously at that point the
               | regulators come knocking..
               | 
               | Assuming there would only be one player. There won't be,
               | but for now only OpenAI is actually aware of the
               | opportunity and Microsoft doesn't even seem to understand
               | it's a platform game now and not an ad game.
        
           | lemoncookiechip wrote:
           | I've had the complete opposite experience. Hallucinations
           | aside (more common with bad prompts or niche/specific
           | topics), ChatGPT 3.5 has been perfect for searching anything
           | that isn't past the model's cut-off date, as well as
           | summurizing long articles I don't have the time or patience
           | to read.
           | 
           | Google on the other hand, is at a point where even Yandex of
           | all search engines is starting to give better results,
           | especially when it comes to image searching and content
           | Google doesn't like as much like piracy. Google used to be
           | amazing back in the day, nowadays I find myself having to
           | specify REDDIT (or a specific forum) on my searches because
           | the top results without it are hardly ever good.
        
         | d136o wrote:
         | I'm far from an expert (just an engineer who likes to download
         | and try out demos) but one dark view of the alignment chatter
         | is that it's really about whether can you can get this new big
         | artificial brain to push any user in the direction of BigCorp
         | goal, while letting the users think that it's answering their
         | questions etc.
         | 
         | I'd love to think that we can have AI agents working locally
         | (with privacy) in alignment with our personal goals, but that
         | seems like one of those things that won't happen. (Will apple
         | come through in terms of enabling local+decentralized
         | inference/training?)
        
           | ralfn wrote:
           | It's in the interest of the semi conductor industry for LLM
           | to become a commodity, so it will.
        
         | goldfeld wrote:
         | A floundering corporation has the extractivist mentality.
         | Windows is on its way out so the suits pump it full of cheap
         | bait to catch all the dollars they can, then they move on to
         | other products naturally. It has been a rotten thing for a
         | while, since the executives and investors don't really care
         | about that brand, only about their own portfolios.
        
           | robertlagrant wrote:
           | Flaundering? I think Microsoft is a perfectly cromulent
           | company.
           | 
           | (Bah! Keeping it.)
        
             | goldfeld wrote:
             | Haha, I fire first but always double-check later the things
             | that on second thought look strange. TIL English is still
             | hard for me after over 25 years, and I used to think I was
             | a more careful speller than native speakers who often type
             | by the memory of words' sounds, and I do not. It can always
             | publicly bite you in the tushy.
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | I think it's a great word! Wonderful to be there for its
               | genesis.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | I wish my business was floundering like Microsoft.
             | 
             | https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/ne
             | t...
        
               | goldfeld wrote:
               | A tech company can be on unstable ground morally (well I
               | guess all are on principle), or more modernly, in terms
               | of mindshare. Financials are not always the root of all
               | that matters.
        
         | blibble wrote:
         | I think this sums up modern microsoft perfectly actually
         | 
         | no matter the potential future value of the product, they can't
         | resist putting shitty ads into it to make a quick buck today
         | 
         | imagine what windows is going to look like in a few years time
        
         | acchow wrote:
         | What happens when the SEO-equivalent cottage industry for LLMs
         | appears? Will trainings models be so easy?
        
         | MuffinFlavored wrote:
         | > Microsoft is squandering the opportunity the way they
         | squander every opportunity.
         | 
         | https://www.google.com/search?q=microsfot+market+cap
         | 
         | $2.09t
         | 
         | "squander opportunity"
         | 
         | I agree with you though. I do not have a single Microsoft
         | product in my house. No Windows, no Xbox, etc.
        
         | seydor wrote:
         | That's how google started as well. Ads is a tried and true
         | model and is not going anyway anytime. People won't pay for
         | bing chat search
        
           | ralfn wrote:
           | The point is not to leave the chat.
           | 
           | If you could buy the car from the chat, thats the correct
           | bussiness model.
           | 
           | Ads were the correct business model for search, where the
           | goal is to find and click on a relevant link.. but that's the
           | exact opposite of a chat. Clicking a link means the chat
           | failed its purpose.
        
         | sebzim4500 wrote:
         | >Microsoft is squandering the opportunity the way they squander
         | every opportunity.
         | 
         | While I find ads as annoying as you do, I don't think they are
         | squandering anything. The vast majority of internet users are
         | fine looking at ads, or else they would use an adblocker.
         | 
         | The earlier they start playing with ads the earlier they can
         | get an idea for how much revenue is on the table. Without this
         | data how can they know what inference cost can be justified
         | long term?
        
           | ralfn wrote:
           | I think I'm failing to communicate my point here.
           | 
           | It's the wrong bussiness model. The power of these chats is
           | integration. To have the chat suggest a travel plan -and-
           | book all the underlying steps. To integrate 3rd party
           | services on the fly based on your specific requirements while
           | rolling it up in a single transaction.
           | 
           | That only works if the chat is representing my interests. Not
           | just from a user perspective, but also from a regulatory and
           | anti-trust perspective.
           | 
           | ChatGPT is positioned to be a platform of apps that are
           | integrated. Bing is positioned to be a search engine, making
           | money on ads.
           | 
           | The whole point is to never leave the chat. To have it all
           | come to you on your terms.
           | 
           | I want to do every transaction that I do online today from my
           | chat. I don't care if you have a website or an app. If I
           | can't order/subscribe from the chat your product might as
           | well not exist.
           | 
           | Examples:
           | 
           | - I want a peperroni pizza from the highest rated place that
           | doesn't also sell kebab that can deliver within 30 minutes.
           | 
           | - Send a neutral professional Christmas gift to every
           | customer in our EMEA region that generates at least 50k
           | revenue for us
           | 
           | At no point would I accept the product choices to be decided
           | by who pays Microsoft more. Nor do I care who makes it
           | happen. I don't want a link. I don't want to engage.
           | 
           | But I'm perfectly fine with a neutral chat taking 5-30% cut
           | on the transaction.
        
             | travisjungroth wrote:
             | But are you willing to pay a 5-30% premium? I think I am,
             | but not everyone is.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | You are always paying that! Ads aren't free either.
               | Neither is the marketing, the website, the app, etc.
               | Getting your customers is expensive, serving them is as
               | well.
               | 
               | But you wouldn't need any of those to compete in this
               | market, any more than an Uber driver would need that.
               | 
               | All you need is to tell a chat about your API and focus
               | on your actual product. It is a much more submissive
               | relationship with the customer, but not a less profitable
               | one.
        
               | travisjungroth wrote:
               | It's not the same. The mechanism has a serious effect on
               | behavior. You're saying _you_ would give the chat a cut
               | but it's not yours to give. You pay $100 for something
               | and you tell the vendor "I found this through chat. You
               | get $70 and they get $30." I don't really see that
               | working. If the vendor opts-in to this relationship and
               | chat only shows people who pay then it's called
               | advertising or reselling. If they show everyone, then
               | there's little incentive to pay.
               | 
               | I'm not saying it's unsolvable, but this getting a cut
               | idea is not a solution.
               | 
               | I do see abandoning normal advertising and optimizing for
               | chat being possible. It's like SEO. Not sure it's a
               | sufficient model for the chat services.
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | Let me phrase it differently.
               | 
               | When people give Apple Music a cut of their song sales,
               | or when people give Apple a cut of their iOS in game
               | spending, it is not called advertisement.
               | 
               | When you pay to tell someone who doesn't want to hear it
               | about your product, thats advertisement.
               | 
               | The smart play here is the platform play. Clicking on a
               | link and leaving the chat is the opposite of the intent
               | and purpose of the chat. It makes sense for search
               | because going to another website is the point. For search
               | it is the correct business model, but for chat it is not.
               | The chat is the platform. Leaving it breaks all the
               | advantages.
        
               | ezst wrote:
               | > When people give Apple Music a cut of their song sales,
               | or when people give Apple a cut of their iOS in game
               | spending, it is not called advertisement.
               | 
               | That's assuming the song or app you purchase isn't the
               | result of heavy promotion in the first place (in all ways
               | possible, direct or indirect)...
        
               | travisjungroth wrote:
               | Apple Music is a reseller, distributor, whatever you want
               | to call it. Their interests are generally more aligned
               | with yours but not entirely.
               | 
               | This commission based system is not a silver bullet. It
               | won't be the optimal business model, the smart move,
               | _and_ be totally aligned with your interests. You can't
               | do that with commissions.
               | 
               | No one is going to trust it to help them decide between
               | going on a vacation versus taking time off at home when
               | it's getting a cut of the plane tickets.
        
               | sebzim4500 wrote:
               | A huge number of people are. You can very often get
               | cheaper prices than Uber/Deliveroo if you order from the
               | restaurant directly but that's less convenient so it
               | doesn't happen (as much).
        
             | bruce511 wrote:
             | I feel like you're almost advocating for a "Google where
             | -only- ads are displayed.
             | 
             | >> At no point would I accept the product choices to be
             | decided by who pays Microsoft more
             | 
             | But in all your examples you're absolutely going to get
             | products which pay MS more. Pizza from the "highest rated
             | place". Rated by whom? Against what criteria? Neutral
             | professional Chriatmas Gift; I mean, paid product placement
             | here we come.
             | 
             | >> But I'm perfectly fine with a neutral chat taking 5-30%
             | cut on the transaction.
             | 
             | So, I sign up to "supply" (but not "advertise") my product
             | for a 30% cut of the proceeds, but you don't expect the
             | engine to push the higher-value ,higher-cut options? The
             | engine should be neutral - regardless if the product is
             | signed up or not? Regardless of the commission?
        
               | ralfn wrote:
               | The engine wouldn't allow you to order something from a
               | vendor that hasn't signed up.
               | 
               | Just like you can't pay for iOS app outside of their
               | appstore.
               | 
               | Just like how Uber, DoorDash, Booking.com are neutral
               | vendors. They don't care from which restaurant you order
               | or which hotel you book. You can filter by customer
               | rating. They make the same either way. Same for iOS or
               | Android apps or Apple Music or Steam.
               | 
               | It is in their interest to keep it fair and have the
               | users decide which of their suppliers wins.
               | 
               | I don't see a difference.
               | 
               | They especially don't care if I'm doing all my
               | transactions though them anyway. The only thing that
               | decides how much I spend, and therefore they make, would
               | be my income.
               | 
               | Keep in mind OpenAI wouldn't be the only game in town,
               | just the first, so if the same query gets a better or
               | cheaper deal somewhere else they would lose me as a
               | customer.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | manuelmoreale wrote:
             | > I don't want a link. I don't want to engage.
             | 
             | Isn't this just another way to say that you don't want the
             | burden of choice, you just want someone else to chose for
             | you? And in that case, capitalism will chose for you and
             | you'll definitely not get what you want or what is best for
             | you but rather what has paid more to be promoted and sold
             | to you.
             | 
             | It's not better than clicking and buying the first result
             | on Amazon.
        
         | hankchinaski wrote:
         | Either the monetization is done with ads or with paid
         | subscriptions. They chose to be in the former category. And I
         | personally don't mind clicking ads for the sake of not paying a
         | premium. The two models can coexist
        
           | ralfn wrote:
           | The third model is the platform model and thats the only one
           | that makes sense here.
           | 
           | An ad would send you to another site. The point of the chat
           | is so you don't have to go to all the shitty sites and deal
           | with all the marketing speak.
           | 
           | So the options are either:
           | 
           | - subscription, as they do now (ala Netflix, Officd365)
           | 
           | - free, with ads having the profit maximalisation be the
           | exact opposite of the main selling point (ala Google, Bing,
           | Facebook)
           | 
           | - platform, free for the user, but taking a cut from vendors
           | that would integrate (ala iOS, Android, Steam, Amazon,
           | Salesforce)
           | 
           | In other words, rather than being an ad, it could offer to
           | buy the car directly from the chat.
           | 
           | The later is the most profitable solution and also ensure the
           | interests of the user and the platform align. Platforms don't
           | care which product you buy _through_ them, they take the same
           | cut, and would rather make you as happy as possible so you
           | don 't go to the competitor.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | majormajor wrote:
         | It's not clear to me that ChatGPT will realistically be able to
         | avoid some variant of either SEO or pay-to-play just like
         | search.
         | 
         | If you've got a dozen plugins for getting food delivered, how
         | does one get picked?
         | 
         | If it's the user picking, they're at risk of the user cutting
         | out the middleman, especially if the novelty of "tell the robot
         | to pick an item" wears off and people want to actually look at
         | menus.
         | 
         | If it's something behind the scenes (either the model or some
         | other software OpenAI writes) then that's a big big big
         | temptation for pay-to-play a la app stores including direct
         | advertising "promotional placement" like you see in mobile app
         | stores. And even if it's not pay-to-play, once people start
         | figuring out what makes plugins more or less likely to be
         | triggered, it's SEO season.
         | 
         | Nobody else has managed the art of "make it purely in the
         | user's interest" with their marketplaces; it ends with one or
         | both of either temptation to play both sides OR
         | gamification/optimization/deception from the vendors behind the
         | scenes.
        
       | topicseed wrote:
       | Bing Chat had Ads since day one, just shown to very few users.
        
       | spyder wrote:
       | Don't worry, even if the locally runnable small language models
       | will not have the same performance as the big models of
       | companies, I think the local ones will be good enough to at least
       | filter out ads from the responses of the big company models. -
       | AImblock extension soon :-)
        
       | somedude895 wrote:
       | I don't get it, doesn't look like an ad to me. What am I missing?
        
         | squeaky-clean wrote:
         | The little blue bubbles that indicate the citation also have a
         | bubble that says "Ad". This is a sponsored placement for
         | Truecar.
        
           | somedude895 wrote:
           | Oh there we go, thank you
        
       | gigel82 wrote:
       | I'm curious to hear what the alternative would be. Are you going
       | to pay a subscription for Bing Chat? Or pay-per-use?
        
       | reset-password wrote:
       | Of course it does.
        
         | lockhouse wrote:
         | Well it's either that or you pay a subscription for it.
         | Microsoft has to recoup their costs somehow.
        
           | reset-password wrote:
           | Or it ends up being both, because Microsoft.
        
           | criddell wrote:
           | Microsoft owns a pretty big chunk of OpenAI. They are going
           | to make a lot more from that investment than the nickels and
           | dimes that their search engine generates. They can afford to
           | pay for chat.
        
             | michaelt wrote:
             | Aren't search ads the biggest revenue source for Google,
             | one of the biggest tech companies around?
        
             | lockhouse wrote:
             | Compute and bandwidth are not free. Just because they can
             | afford to give it away for free doesn't mean there'sa good
             | business case to do so.
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | I hope this means they're going to consider making it available
       | on other browsers. After all, now it's in their interest to get
       | more eyeballs.
        
         | freediver wrote:
         | It is already avaialble on any browser that allows you to
         | change the User agent.
        
       | lfciv wrote:
       | I wonder if any earlier prompts asked about Honda - feels a bit
       | weird to ask what the cheapest car overall is and have the chat
       | bot say "well let me tell you about some Hondas overall"
       | 
       | And if the user did specify Hondas then why would Honda pay for
       | it? Wouldn't the Chat bot give the same answer regardless of
       | whether it's paid? I guess you pay for the CTA link?
        
         | somedude895 wrote:
         | I just checked and found one of my company's ads. It seems it
         | just pulls in the ads that a normal search on bing would find.
         | I'm gonna have to ask our Bing account manager tomorrow if
         | they're charging us for these clicks as if it was normal SEA,
         | because it's pretty busted with the url beneath the description
         | being a different website from what the text says.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | squeaky-clean wrote:
       | I've been getting ads in it for over a week now. I just retried a
       | question I asked last week that had 1 ad, now there's 3 ads. Last
       | week it suggested two space heaters, the Lasko one was an ad. Now
       | all 3 suggestions are ads.
       | 
       | https://imgur.com/a/rEmBUpk
       | 
       | That's the full chat, no earlier context. This is using the
       | "Precise" mode option.
       | 
       | The ads all go to some variation of
       | 
       | https://best.offers.com/best-space-heaters
       | 
       | But strangely the citation #1 claims to be Tomsguide. Edit: here
       | is an image that shows the citation section
       | https://imgur.com/a/CEEoM9D
        
         | mustacheemperor wrote:
         | I'm having the same experience, and it's drastically reduced
         | the utility of the chat. It seems like Bing will ignore earlier
         | context to cram an ad in now.
         | 
         | I was speccing a portable video/audio conference device at a
         | specific budget and it would. Not. Stop. Recommending the same
         | three Logitech products. Didn't matter that one is 8 years old
         | and I said in my first message I don't want it. Didn't matter
         | that one was completely outside the stated budget. Even when I
         | got it to recommend other products, I got 2 completely not-
         | correct options, and one of the same Logitechs it already
         | suggested.
         | 
         | If I wanted to see the first page of sponsored Amazon search
         | results I wouldn't have bothered asking the bot.
         | 
         | This is how Microsoft will save us all from a world where AGI
         | is completely dominated by them. By dropping the ball on it.
        
         | jrootabega wrote:
         | That just looks like those fake review/comparison/advice sites
         | that have polluted search results for ages. I can tell they're
         | bullshit. I guess bing can now reach people who can't, or will
         | be so distracted by the fact that it's "AI" that they won't
         | notice.
        
           | squeaky-clean wrote:
           | Yeah that bestoffers site is nothing more than an Amazon
           | referral link farm. My guess is it's actually pulling the
           | products from its stated sources like tomsguide, comparing
           | them against a database of product-ads, and bestoffers has
           | that in their entries so they win the link for the product.
        
       | IceHegel wrote:
       | "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They
       | have absolutely no taste and and and what that means is... I
       | don't mean that the small way I mean in a big way. In the sense
       | that they they don't think of original ideas, and they don't
       | bring much culture into their products."
       | 
       | - Steve Jobs
        
         | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
         | I'm perfectly happy with Microsoft, as an an enterprise
         | solution provider, having no "culture" in their products. I
         | don't want "Made with <heart emoji> at Redmond", I want the
         | equivalent of vanilla ice cream that just works.
         | 
         | That said, ads in bing chat IS adding a flavour, and I don't
         | like it, not one bit.
        
           | PascLeRasc wrote:
           | You're right about how the tabloid news in your taskbar just
           | works, in that it's always there and I'm not allowed to turn
           | it off.
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | I always hear people complain about this. I never see it. I
             | use Windows 11 and I never see any ads. The closest I get
             | to is if I search and bing pops up, but that's it. I also
             | turned off all the extra crap, my taskbar and search menu
             | are as bare-bones as possible.
             | 
             | Edit: To clarify, I run Windows 11 Home.
        
               | qazxcvbnmlp wrote:
               | Yeah - a fresh windows 11 home install is pretty
               | aggressive. But if you use the pro version or run a
               | cleanup script it's not bad.
        
               | Asmod4n wrote:
               | Its not a thing on windows 11 pro, only home it seams.
        
           | CuriouslyC wrote:
           | Crappy road or poopies and cream?
        
           | BoorishBears wrote:
           | You're just misunderstanding the concept of culture here.
           | 
           | "Culture" doesn't define a flavor, it's just having a
           | consistent flavor driven by shared values at all levels of
           | the company: If Microsoft had culture, that culture could be
           | "we are always the plain vanilla ice cream for our customers"
           | 
           | "Culture" is what keeps you from adding soy sauce to your
           | vanilla ice cream that has managed to captivate the globe...
           | just to make a few pennies. Which is what these ads are.
        
             | waboremo wrote:
             | A much more clear example. However and tying this into what
             | Steve Jobs was saying, Microsoft's culture would not be
             | "plain vanilla ice cream". It's lacking taste, so it would
             | be a waffle cone topped with mayonnaise that looks like
             | soft serve vanilla ice cream. They have no taste, they
             | can't tell the difference and due to their massive moats
             | people eat up anyways.
        
               | BoorishBears wrote:
               | I agree they're not vanilla ice cream, but I do think
               | Microsoft _could_ be that vanilla provider if they
               | actually worked to form a culture.
               | 
               | These ads are a great example: So many teams did thing
               | right to get "BingGPT" in everyone's minds.
               | 
               | But then some tasteless exec looking to notch "monetized
               | leading LLM driven search engine" on their belt got to
               | ask some developers to get some ads into the thing and
               | now they've dumped on all the hard work that came before
               | that.
               | 
               | If they had a proper culture ideally an exec like that
               | would not work at MS, and even if they did they'd have
               | hit resistance on so many levels. Developers would not
               | want to work on it. Designers would push back, PMs would
               | deprioritize. At the end of the day their short-sighted
               | idea would have stayed just that: an idea.
        
               | waboremo wrote:
               | Fully in agreement, they're in all the necessary
               | positions to do so.
        
             | lwhi wrote:
             | Culture is the recipe; the combination of attributes that
             | makes it distinctive.
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | I think in my mind it's loaded because of who the quote is
             | coming from - I have a very clear idea of what "iCulture"
             | means to me. It's not at all vanilla, though it does offer
             | vanilla, but calls it "artisanal french vanilla".
             | 
             | How you're describing it, "culture" sounds more like
             | "values", which might be a better understanding.
        
               | PascLeRasc wrote:
               | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNK4VKeoBM
        
           | dustymcp wrote:
           | Well they had to come at some point..
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | You'd think they'd wait until you no longer had to sign up
             | to the service to use it. I suppose we should be
             | appreciative of how forthcoming with the dickbaggery they
             | are being here.
        
           | mecsred wrote:
           | Take a look at the modern software landscape, ads are the
           | vanilla in your vanilla ice cream.
        
             | xattt wrote:
             | Vanilla is comfort.
             | 
             | Ads are more like the smell of old cigarette smoke and
             | urine.
        
           | electrondood wrote:
           | When Bing Chat started sassing the user, that was like
           | someone had swirled in a nice ribbon of diarrhea into the
           | vanilla ice cream.
        
             | Tommstein wrote:
             | Bard does too. The other day I simply asked it whether it
             | could search the Internet, and it gave me some asshole
             | response about how it wasn't going to do my homework for me
             | and some other stuff I don't remember. And no, homework had
             | nothing to do with anything.
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | It wouldn't be a Microsoft chatbot without it getting
             | controversial.
        
           | fnordpiglet wrote:
           | I prefer made in nj, which is expressed as a series of
           | cryptic two letter symbols and line noise looking stuff
           | thrown between.
        
         | penjelly wrote:
         | maybe that was true back then, but now? microsoft has vscode,
         | copilot, chatpgpt ownership, a head start on LLM search, azure,
         | github. It feels like some of those products have some
         | taste/culture and if not, theyre still good products that
         | people seem to be enjoyibg
        
           | PascLeRasc wrote:
           | Half of the stuff you listed they just bought and stuck their
           | names on.
        
             | penjelly wrote:
             | yes im aware they bought github and others on this list.
             | would you say since github has only gone since downhill? I
             | wouldnt at least.
        
               | PascLeRasc wrote:
               | I'm confused why you think you can attribute the taste
               | and culture of Github to Microsoft, since you seem to
               | know that they did not create it. I'd say Github's text
               | editor has gone downhill since Microsoft bought it and
               | reassigned the maintainers to a slower and clunkier
               | editor.
        
               | penjelly wrote:
               | > I'm confused why you think you can attribute the taste
               | and culture of Github to Microsoft
               | 
               | i didnt.
               | 
               | microsoft has owned github for 4 years at this point. In
               | your opinion, have they degraded githubs culture in that
               | time and if so by how much and how? Personally, from the
               | outside looking in, github and their tools have gotten
               | better. Though of course, that couldve still been the
               | case if github retained its original leadership, i just
               | doubt it.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | "Anyway, here's 100 Bible apps. Only on the Apple App Store."
        
         | imwithstoopid wrote:
         | and then Jobs released a teal-colored computer
         | 
         | so maybe no taste isn't as bad as awful taste
        
           | wilsonnb3 wrote:
           | I like the teal iMac G3, assuming that is the computer you
           | are referring to. Computer colors are so boring usually.
           | Beige, grey, black, white.
           | 
           | (Sent from my green M1 iMac)
        
           | RosanaAnaDana wrote:
           | [flagged]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | night-rider wrote:
         | Tried the Bing app on iOS and was baffled as to what was the
         | unique selling point. It tries too hard, and is somewhat of an
         | 'everything app' that does multiple things simultaneously and
         | rather badly at that (News, Browsing, Search, Coupons, Chat,
         | etc). It's also really aggressive on the amount of data it
         | grabs. I opened my debugger and it seems they look at
         | everything they can.
        
         | w_for_wumbo wrote:
         | I'm not sure, I think corporate overreach has always been the
         | flavour of Microsoft. Poor decisions lead by business first
         | incentives instead of a customer focus seems to be a consistent
         | theme from them in my experience.
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | Even though I am mostly on Microsoft stacks, Steve Jobs was
         | right.
         | 
         | Whatever good will the development teams are able to deliver,
         | it get messed up by sales and marketing business units.
        
       | thunderbong wrote:
       | Better readability -
       | 
       | https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1640892791923572737.html
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | croes wrote:
       | Ads ruined Google search, now MS is ruining it's new toy already.
        
       | thehappyfellow wrote:
       | That's exactly what I worried about:
       | https://happyfellow.bearblog.dev/sydney-the-seo-specialist/
        
       | franky47 wrote:
       | "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make
       | people click ads. That sucks" -- Jeff Hammerbacher
        
       | agilob wrote:
       | I will need to run LLama locally to tell me if I'm reading an ad
       | and then block it.
        
         | purplecats wrote:
         | yeah curious how adblockers will work on this. it would need to
         | work in a manner that is grammatically correct so likely would
         | involve another LLM rather than blindly removing ad-related
         | words from the response.
        
       | wslh wrote:
       | It reminds me when Microsoft acquired Skype and also added ads
       | there... seems very basic.
        
       | some_random wrote:
       | So my question here is if Bing Chat (or other LLMs) will withhold
       | information from users when it conflicts with an ad. Right now
       | searches will prioritize ads but will still return the real
       | results, if LLMs refuse to return the real results then we'll
       | have a lot of issues.
        
       | marktakeshi wrote:
       | I've managed to prompt inject Bing 2 days ago and it revealed
       | some of it latest prepromots. 2 were related to advertisement,
       | which I found interesting:
       | 
       | - If the person is clearly shopping for a product or service or
       | if our answer suggests it, we must always generate a relevant
       | advertising search that fits the person's request and one of our
       | suggestions.
       | 
       | -We must never generate an advertising search that is very
       | similar to the previous one or that is for a different product or
       | service than the one the person is searching for.
        
         | hosteur wrote:
         | Interesting. How did you manage extract those?
        
       | sergiotapia wrote:
       | This is totally fine if it means free access to GPT chat for
       | poorer countries. It's a powerful tool that will help a lot of
       | people who can't afford a premium ChatGPT membership. Plus you
       | can always say show me the prices across the top three sites.
        
         | InCityDreams wrote:
         | I'm poor. Please don't sell me things.
        
           | sergiotapia wrote:
           | It's either you see an ad or you don't use Bing's GPT chat. I
           | don't think that's much of a choice.
        
         | baliex wrote:
         | Don't you think it's too much of a compromise for those people
         | to be abused by the corporations with the deepest pockets in
         | exchange?
        
         | CatWChainsaw wrote:
         | So poor people get to use free Bing Chat With Ads For Stuff
         | They Can't Buy With Money They Don't Have. That's.... rich. :)
        
       | hintymad wrote:
       | Do people in the Bay Area still remember how much of a thread
       | Microsoft is to the Bay Area companies? How many tech CEOs went
       | to the capitol hill to cry to the congress how evil MS is? Until
       | in the 2000s did Google rise up, producing obviously superior
       | products and technologies faster than MS. MS gradually became
       | irrelevant in the tech circles of the Bay Area. It's amazing the
       | tide seems have changed again. It is now Microsoft who's going
       | offensive: investing the right companies, producing products
       | faster and better than Google. The Bay Area techies should really
       | pay attention to MS now.
        
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       (page generated 2023-03-29 23:01 UTC)