[carlosdp]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but this is kinda cool! As long as the user data doesn't leave the Meta ecosystem (no reason to think it does right now, the ad in question here is from Meta itself), it's not a privacy concern since only you are being shown those unique ads with you in them.

Even if other advertisers start using the system, as long as the generated resulting images are never shared with the advertisers and are unique to each user, its just a futuristic way to help you "imagine" what having XYZ product would be like, which is what most ads strive to do.

People have knee-jerk reactions to anything to do with ads because of the privacy concerns of yesterday, understandably. But if you actually step back and think about this, there's no reduction in privacy that I can see. If people are creeped out by it, I think they should maybe let people disable them with a setting.

But in general, making ads more effective without giving advertisers more data about us is a great thing for the continuation of free amazing internet services!

[afavour]

Man, I absolutely cannot disagree more. If a service wants to use my face in an ad they need to ask me for permission first. The gradual erosion of user autonomy we’ve seen online over the past few decades never ceases to amaze me.

> People have knee-jerk reactions to anything to do with ads because of the privacy concerns of yesterday, understandably.

Can you elaborate on this? What were the privacy concerns of yesterday that we don’t need to worry about today?

[mysterydip]

> If a service wants to use my face in an ad they need to ask me for permission first.

But you granted us full unrestricted access when you agreed to page 58 section J of our latest terms of service. - meta lawyer somewhere

[carlosdp]

It's an ad only you can see, I don't see the harm.

> What were the privacy concerns of yesterday that we don’t need to worry about today?

The web/internet is a hell of a lot more private today than 10 years ago. Third party cookies are basically gone, mobile tracking is going out the door with Apple leading that charge, there are tons of relatively popular browsers and extensions that reduce tracking even more, there's enough privacy legislation that big companies have had to re-architect to preserve privacy as much as possible by default.

Hell, if we're just talking about Meta, they literally nuked a thriving third-party developer API ecosystem to appease people's privacy concerns, out right.

[raxxor]

There were times when users warned about the consequences of putting your images on the net. If you upload them on Facebook services, you gave away the rights on them I believe.

[unsnap_biceps]

If they use your picture to advertise to your friends, showing you in a nike shoe or whatever, that's still okay? It still wouldn't have left the Meta ecosystem.

[bandinobaddies]

They might create an AI-generated person who closely resembles your friend but not exactly. If they do it undetected, it could have a massive impact. Imagine an ad featuring someone who looks just like your crush. I really hope this gets banned before anyone tries it.

This scenario reminds me of Amazon Prime’s Live TV with hyper-targeted advertising. A friend who has it noticed that his ads revealed what he and his wife had browsed on Amazon. It was fun at times to see that we’d all been looking at the same items, but it also felt a bit too personal. Now he never turn on his TV whenever guests visit.

[carlosdp]

No, because that would be sharing your photo and not unique to you as a user. I also don't really see why anyone would want to do that...

[npteljes]

As much as I loathe ads, I actually agree with you. I think these are good points. Among others, it's a very important realization that just by properly using these services, so much of the privacy has been given up already. It's just that services are clever about this, same as how corrupt populists: they do the damage, but keep away the negative feedback as much as they can, hiding, delaying, projecting, doesn't matter, as long as people don't feel it.

This is why this ad seems outrageous: it provides this feedback. Demonstrates just a little bit of the power that they have over the person. So the user immediately sobered up, maybe even vowed something to the opposite.

[numpad0]

I think you all pro-AI clusters should face the fact straight that people hate AI generated images.

AI as an art style evokes primal hate and rage. If you show images to people that are linked to such set of emotions, such set of emotions arise among audiences. As demonstrated.

This tendency of current AI image generators needs to be fixed before AI image generators could be used to create positive impacts.

[Devasta]

> But in general, making ads more effective without giving advertisers more data about us is a great thing for the continuation of free amazing internet services!

Too right! Sure, Facebook may have facilitated multiple ethnic cleansings around the world, but its a small price to pay to facilitate a dystopian future in which tech illiterate, elderly boomers are bombarded with AI generated ads of their own funerals that encourage them to buy life assurance policies...