In a speech at Harvard Memorial Church, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, expressed his disdain for advertising, arguing it misaligns user incentives with those of service providers. He found the integration of advertising with AI unsettling. The article reflects on the historical context of advertising in tech, noting the shift in stance by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who once opposed ads for compromising search engine utility. Their eventual embrace of advertising as a funding model highlights tensions between ethical considerations and business pressures in tech development.
Last spring, Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, sat in the chancel of Harvard Memorial Church, sermonizing against advertising. I will disclose, just as a personal bias, that I hate ads, he began in his usual calm cadence, one sneakered foot crossed onto his lap.
He said that ads fundamentally misalign a user's incentives with the company providing the service, adding that he found the notion of mixing advertising with artificial intelligence the product his company is built on uniquely unsettling.
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