[Workaccount2]

Because then the AI isn't working for you anymore, it's working for the advertisers. Which isn't necessarily bad, but we can be pretty confident that the AI will not be upfront about this, and instead try to act like it's working for you.

[handfuloflight]

If the advertising is contextually relevant, how is it working against you?

[pigeons]

Just being contextually relevant doesn't mean its in your interests as opposed to in the interests of the advertised or that the levers are transparent.

[handfuloflight]

Are you assuming all commercial relationships are adversarial? Why can't advertisers and those advertised to have aligned interests? What transparent levers do non-advertised results have, how do you know search rankings don't have hidden commercial incentives? Why trust undisclosed bias over disclosed relationships? Isn't transparency about incentives better than pretending they don't exist?

[withinboredom]

You: "Hey; I need a flight to London tomorrow; leaving at noon! Can you book it for me!"

AI: "Of course! I see there is a flight at 6am tomorrow morning; the next one after that is at 3pm. Will that be a problem?"

You: "I was hoping for something more around lunch time. But if that is the only option; go for it."

AI: "Consider it done. I will send you the details via email in a few minutes."

The insidious part: there was a flight; they just weren’t paying for advertising. Yes. Interests are aligned here; but not yours.

[handfuloflight]

You: "Hey; I need a flight to London tomorrow; leaving at noon! Can you book it for me!"

AI: "Here are all available flights, economy class: 6am (£250), 12pm (£350), (Sponsored) 3pm (£300). The 12pm flight best matches your preference.

Sponsor offer: Save £50 by booking the 3pm flight through TravelDeals and get a free upgrade to business class.

Which would you prefer?"

In any case this is disingenuous, we're discussing LLM results augmented with advertising, not a fully sponsored agent which deliberately hides information. Today's LLMs pull comprehensive data anyway. You've strawmanned contextual advertising into outright fraud.

[withinboredom]

I was illustrating the point; not strawmanning you. In any case, AI does this kind of thing all the time and but usually by overcomplicating things and pretending like there isn’t something simpler or builtin unless you point it out.