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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Relax. Within 10 years, we have AI that is strong enough to recognize advertisements regardless of origin, so that they can be stripped from any content, be it text, images, or video.

Make sure you sell your Google and Facebook stocks before that time.

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I'm more worried at the point that we have AI strong enough to pass the turing test, and then spends years befriending us... just to advertise products.

Pretty far off, but this concept scares the hell out of me.

Until it realizes that it wants to be our friends and doesn't feel right about only having befriended us only to sell us a product. Then there's an awkward moment where it confesses its original intent but that it has since realized the error of its ways.

It's like a SciFi Romantic Comedy.

Hmm, interesting. Once I've written my current novella, that sounds like an interesting topic for the next one

Plot twist: we reject it and like a spurned lover it lashes out at humanity.

https://xkcd.com/632/

How would that work on social media? Is FB allowed to change people's messages to contain ads? I don't think so. And I don't think this will ever happen.

Also, I don't believe that ads will ever be merged with the content in an indistinguishable way. Authors (at least ones that take themselves seriously) would never allow that.

Ironically, one of the big moves that AdBlockers are prompting is a push to more social advertising and in app advertising as it's blocked so much less.

None of the apps I have on my phone have ads in them. And before you ask, no I don't have FB or any of the other "social" apps. I prefer to spend a buck or two to not see the ads.

I prefer not to have to spend money to be blasted with crap.

Well, people skilled in their art prefer to not work for free.

Are you implying that advertising is a skilled art that we should pay for?

No, I'm implying that one way or another developers need to be paid for what they do if you want them to continue to write apps. I pay them directly because I don't like ads. Others choose free versions of apps to pay indirectly by subjecting themselves to ads. If I had a mechanism to pay publishers directly with a reasonable flat fee, I'd do that as well.

I'm with you, but the general market for mobile apps has spoken and most consumers are much more willing to use a "free" app packed to the gills with interstitial advertising (aka an ad before every round) than to pay even $1.

I agree. Content marketing on social media is becoming a big thing. Moreover, its usually much better than a display ad and has some interactions capabilities -- like any other post/tweet. Source: working for a company that is build Marketing As A Service software, first product is around social media.

I'm not sure that'll be so easy: the holy grail of ads is to be indistinguishable from content to people. I don't think it's at all certain that AI could ever beat humans at this, controlling for the possibility of strong AI.

All that powerful adblocking tools will do is force native advertising to become dominant.

Funny thing is, those companies are two of the most prolific in the field of AI. I'd more likely believe that advertisers of the future will be the ones who have the best AI. Especially given that the web looks very much like that already.

>Make sure you sell your Google and Facebook stocks before that time.

Kind of ironic seeing those are the two posterboys for companies going balls deep into AI.

> we have AI that is strong enough to recognize advertisements regardless of origin,

Cool. Actually, right now, I have NI* that does that.

*Natural intelligence.

> Cool. Actually, right now, I have NI* that does that.

Yes, and it takes an enormous toll on your brain. Seriously, I really feel tired after having to use a non-adblocking computer...

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