I’ve always felt a massive gap between the grand proclamations about targeted advertising, the zillions of data processed by Google and al., the astronomical sums poured into this by literally the entire economy, the transition from an almost ad-free internet to a kind of advertising dumpster, and on the other hand, the reality:
These supposedly targeted ads are completely off the mark, generally just offering me the product I just bought, never suggesting anything relevant, when they’re not outright scams (often the case on YouTube and other social networks);
Aside from 3 or 4 misclicks, I’m almost certain I’ve never clicked on a SINGLE advertisement, let alone purchased anything;
This constant stream of advertising vomit just makes me want to close web pages or apps and install as many ad blockers as possible on all my devices.
All the same with suggestions algorithms, I disable them. I don’t need suggestions from a machine that tries to manipulate my mind, I rely on curiosity.
This disconnect is widely shared by most people I know. In fact, thinking about it, I don’t know a single person who appreciates this effusion of advertising on the internet.
So all this data for what exactly? How do we explain this profusion of resources and money?
Of course I know. I don’t matter, neither my relatives. If one guy in a thousand clicks, it is enough. It works statistically because of the massive scale involved.
It just makes me realize that a significant portion of the world’s population lives in a different world, to paraphrase Scott Alexander. The clickers. I’ve never seen one, but that’s a race that has to exist (probably not on LW though).
For the very reasons I hate this giant brainwashing system that internet has become, I find your idea pretty scary. A machine that would know everything about me, know better than me what I want, that could mimic me or why not replace me for good ? Well, it’s maybe anyway the future behind us with ASI but it surely looks like a sci-fi horror scenario.
I’ve always felt a massive gap between the grand proclamations about targeted advertising, the zillions of data processed by Google and al., the astronomical sums poured into this by literally the entire economy, the transition from an almost ad-free internet to a kind of advertising dumpster, and on the other hand, the reality:
These supposedly targeted ads are completely off the mark, generally just offering me the product I just bought, never suggesting anything relevant, when they’re not outright scams (often the case on YouTube and other social networks);
Aside from 3 or 4 misclicks, I’m almost certain I’ve never clicked on a SINGLE advertisement, let alone purchased anything;
This constant stream of advertising vomit just makes me want to close web pages or apps and install as many ad blockers as possible on all my devices.
All the same with suggestions algorithms, I disable them. I don’t need suggestions from a machine that tries to manipulate my mind, I rely on curiosity.
This disconnect is widely shared by most people I know. In fact, thinking about it, I don’t know a single person who appreciates this effusion of advertising on the internet.
So all this data for what exactly? How do we explain this profusion of resources and money?
Of course I know. I don’t matter, neither my relatives. If one guy in a thousand clicks, it is enough. It works statistically because of the massive scale involved.
It just makes me realize that a significant portion of the world’s population lives in a different world, to paraphrase Scott Alexander. The clickers. I’ve never seen one, but that’s a race that has to exist (probably not on LW though).
For the very reasons I hate this giant brainwashing system that internet has become, I find your idea pretty scary. A machine that would know everything about me, know better than me what I want, that could mimic me or why not replace me for good ? Well, it’s maybe anyway the future behind us with ASI but it surely looks like a sci-fi horror scenario.