As warned, Reddit has taken a bundle of money from "Open"AI and will use it to further monetize what you -- and the volunteers who moderate it all -- contributed for free.

It's the norm now, and particularly slimy in this case.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/16/24158529/reddit-openai-chatgpt-api-access-advertising

OpenAI strikes Reddit deal to train its AI on your posts

Reddit and OpenAI have signed an arrangement that makes the site’s posts available in ChatGPT and allows Reddit to build new tools using OpenAI’s models.

The Verge
@dangillmor Isn't that the only way social media sites can make money ... to somehow monetize what users contribute? I am not sure how this is any different or more slimey than any other monetization.

@briansullivan @dangillmor

Seems far sleazier than monetizing with ads or monetizing with features-for-pay.

How about monetizing by selling your personal info to fascists for behavioral manipulation analysis? Paranoia inducing ads targeted at the emotionally vulnerable in order to throw elections? AI seems pretty small change compared to that.

@cy @jamesbritt I guess one thing to note; the A.I. LLM approach here could be used to *generate* the paranoia inducing ads for behavioral manipulation analysis from fascists.

The problem with selling the personal information is that you can serve ads without necessarily selling the personal information the way they did.

True, though there are no ethical ads. Advertisements that aren't dishonest, dangerously manipulative scams to steal money are just called news reporting.

@cy I mean, the thing about that is that sometimes the *news* contains ads masquerading as news. See [ https://youtu.be/sIi_QS1tdFM?si=JRq1BuOquQyvskfO ] and [ https://youtu.be/E_F5GxCwizc?si=Vhxp3N61AIazDU9v ], for examples.

Some ads are more ethical than others, even if you argue all ads are unethical.

Sponsored Content: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube
I'd agree some ads are less unethical, but they're all unethical. Yes it's true if something is news, that doesn't necessarily mean it's ethical. What I'm saying is if something is ethical, then it's news.