.arunim.fyiNotes on Ad Man
I quite enjoyed the presentation, noted the difficulty in telling how to quantify the negative externalities from ads on some sites versus the positive externalities these same sites create.
On the point of AI, I guess I would worry that you end up in an AI-funded-by-ads arms race, where training (or deployment) costs become so significant that whoever starts supplementing their funding with ads also creates the best product.
Nevertheless, someone probably will do AI funded by ads. Ad Man thinks it will be Meta or Google. I’m glad that at least one person will be happy when this happens.
In some ways, Google already funds it’s AI development and deployment with its $230+ billion of ad revenue, and Meta with its $130+ billion—the ads just aren’t from AI applications. Thankfully, it seems like Meta and Google haven’t been able to convert their piles of cash into intelligence quite yet.