The enshittification of AI begins

The arrival of ads in ChatGPT could be the beginning of a slippery slope

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I think that what Ed Zitron called the dog shit economics of it are so off the charts that this really isn’t the kind of thing you fix by price gouging.”

So said Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification, talking about AI in a recent interview with PC Pro (see issue 377, p44). Instead, OpenAI is trying to stem the fiscal bleeding by introducing ads into ChatGPT.

American users of the free version of ChatGPT will be the first to see ads encroaching on their conversations with the chatbot, as the company seeks new revenue streams to pay the astronomical bills for its AI infrastructure.

Will the market leader’s move prompt rivals such as Google, Anthropic and Grok to follow suit? Has the golden age of AI already passed?

Following the Google route

There are uncanny similarities in the way OpenAI has introduced ads into ChatGPT and the way Google brought ads to its search engine.

It was just over two years after launch when Google unveiled its AdWords service for the search engine, letting advertisers buy discrete text listings on the right-hand side of search results.

OpenAI has waited a little longer – just over three years – to launch its first foray into advertising, but it too is treading carefully to start. Ads are being “tested” only in the US, and will be shown only to customers on the free or cheaper Go subscription tiers. And OpenAI promises that chat responses won’t be compromised by advertisers.

“Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you,” the company claimed in a statement. “We decide which ad to show by matching ads submitted by advertisers with the topic of your conversation, your past chats, and past interactions with ads. For example, if you’re researching recipes, you may see ads for meal kits or grocery delivery.”