The article assumes that AI will get shitty the same way search, social media, etc. did. I don't think this is the case at all. It's pretty clear that LLMs will rapidly discover entirely new and innovative ways to be shitty.
Regular TV has non-targeted commercials you can skip. Streaming has surveillance and unskippable ads.
AI can take it a step further and make promoted editorial content a seamless part of a conversation, without disclosure. It's the holy grail of advertising. To think they'll leave that money on the table is ridiculous.
It's not like brand names and arbitrary ideas won't have ways they regularly show up in LLM output organically. So how would we ever know when they become ad placements?
Coming to a NYT Opinion column any day now