Tag: Artificial Intelligence

What Happens to Ads with AI Summaries of Web Pages?

Will AI summarize web ads into submission?

Artificial Intelligence is still the dominate tech craze of the moment. Big announcements are expected within the next several weeks from Apple, Google and just about anyone else who can prompt an AI generated press release into being.  I’m sure AI will continue to be on the tips of most digital tongues.

Or will it all just be summarized? 

One of the trends I’m seeing predicted is how users will take advantage of Artificial Intelligence to summarize web pages. That sounds like a useful, perhaps noble idea but it raises questions. The web relies so much on advertising to generate revenue. AI is supposed to help ad creators and marketers do better and more efficient designing and targeting. What happens when users stop visiting web pages and just rely on summaries? That’s a genuine question I have and would love to read some possible answers.

It’s not that I’m a big fan of ads, but I remember back in the heyday of RSS that there was all sorts of tension regarding losing ad impressions between web publishers and web users that relied on RSS readers. Then RSS feeds of web articles got truncated into teasers to send users clicking. Then ads got inserted into RSS. Will the same thing happen with ads being inserted into AI summaries? How would that work with something like an AI Pin or the Rabbit R1? (Although I doubt those devices will be around for us to find out.) 

Given that one of the other predicted AI trends is being able to verbally converse with whatever AI machine you choose, how would that work with advertising? Will a user need to listen to ads before getting a response to their prompt? There’s already a lag in compute capacity resulting in delays delivering responses to queries with most current AI engines. I don’t imagine waiting for an ad insertion will help improve on that. 

Again, these are sincere questions that I’d love to hear some thoughts on. Just don’t summarize them.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

The AI Pin Feels Less Than Humane

It’s tough to do a hot take on the AI Pin from Humane given how creepy cold the launch and the video was. The makers’ chill approach sure didn’t light any fires of enthusiasm. I’ve seen friends in a hangover stupor with more enthusiasm about their prospects of greeting a new day. If that’s the sort of calm, cool, and collected monotone our future AI world promises it sure doesn’t feel like a very Humane one. 

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As for the technology, certainly at some point in the future we’re headed to something like this and I’ll give the makers credit for their efforts so far. At this point there’s no way to really judge the product or its future, but you can see a certain promise in this kind of Star Trek type of human to computer interaction. 

Even so, whether collated and sorted by AI or generated by apps you still need to somehow get something “on screen” at some point. And I’m thinking that needs to be larger than your palm. I can’t imagine negotiating with a laser image of someone’s face in my palm, and “voice only” only gets you so far.

That’s the big disconnect in my first reaction. The AI Pin feels more like an input accessory than an end point. If I’m out for the day and snap a few pictures or video they need to be viewed before they are of any value other than further training an AI engine or sending location tracking data.  And yes, i can imagine a future with some sort of headset or glasses to view those images, but I also imagine whatever that face computer might be, it will also have the same approximate features as the AI Pin. 

So, I say kudos for pushing the discussion. Push it with a little more human enthusiasm next time around. 

Here’s the video.