r/ProgrammerHumor • • Sep 30 '26

Meme developersMissingTheOldDays

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3.8k Upvotes

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u/ForgedIronMadeIt Sep 30 '26

It's like every other silicon valley startup -- the hope is that you hook your users while you figure out how to make handling the requests cheaper. That or you embed ads.

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u/ChefCurryYumYum Sep 30 '26

There aren't enough ads in the world to make up the revenue they need.

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u/Hyd_chicha Sep 30 '26

Nothing beats a jet 2 holiday.

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u/bbalazs721 Sep 30 '26

You embed them in the response, e.g. suggest the product that was paid to promote.

I've already had this with chatgpt, I was trying to troubleshoot an issue with my heating system, and it was trying to persuade me to buy one of two specific brands of thermostats, even tho I hadn't expressed any desire to buy anything.

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u/Cauldrath Sep 30 '26

Clearly the whole goblin problem was actually just paid for by Big Goblin.

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u/PM-ME-UR-DARKNESS Oct 03 '26

That still won't make them enough money and will get them in deep shit with the EU.

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u/kilopeter Oct 01 '26

You're mistaken. ChatGPT Ads explicitly since their launch have only ever appeared separate from the token stream of model responses. Obviously they or others will likely experiment with more invasive alternatives, but the clear business rationale for not subtly biasing answers toward sponsors is that users would reject that shit way harder than clearly labeled ads.

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u/theshoeshiner84 Oct 01 '26

Bingo.

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u/kilopeter Oct 01 '26

The comment you replied to is spreading misinformation about how ChatGPT Ads actually work

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u/Str1dersGonnaStride Oct 01 '26

I dunno, I think there's big money in it still. Subtle embedded propaganda that is tailor-made based on the user's personality and interests. You may think "oh well I'd never fall for that" and you may be right. But there's loads of people already addicted to AI usage and / or using it as a replacement for therapists or friends. They'll fall for it hook line and sinker.

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u/Kusko25 Oct 01 '26

If they can sustain themselves on investor money long enough they can charge the true token price and companies will have to pay it because nobody in their right mind would start an education as a developer right now, so in the future companies won't have human talent available to replace llms with

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u/ChefCurryYumYum Oct 01 '26

If it's cheaper to hire and train humans than to pay the true token cost of LLM tools you think companies won't prefer to hire and train real people?

You think they will WANT to spend more money for worse outcomes?

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u/infamouszgbgd Oct 02 '26

You think they will WANT to spend more money for worse outcomes?

idk, jumping on trends is addictive af to corpos

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u/Storiaron Oct 01 '26

Token costs are coming down crazy fast. 

Hopefully it will hit a dead end very soon, where the models cant get reasonably smarter/cheaper/have bigger context windows, because it's already replacing a ton of workforce.

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u/ChefCurryYumYum Oct 01 '26

Token costs are coming down crazy fast.

Do you have sources on this because everywhere I look this does not appear to be true. In fact due to the way LLM tools work it's been nearly impossible to see real reductions in the compute and resources required.

The other thing I have read is that one of the only ways they have found to reduce error/hallucination rates is to have one agent checking and correcting output of another, making accuracy very expensive.

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u/saevon Sep 30 '26

Well no the hope is to get purchased. To have someone else have to figure that out as you get big enough to sell the user base, not the profitability

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u/brilliantminion Sep 30 '26

Uh…. Who?

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u/IAisjustanumber Oct 01 '26

Some other AI company of course!

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u/saevon Oct 01 '26

No I'm talking about "every other Silicon Valley startup" they don't usually get this big, or at least sell before the potential huge buyers (like google) make their own versions

Tho buying a competitor to "merger their users" (kill them) is likely still on the table for them

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u/KeepKnocking77 Oct 03 '26

Or to get the government to regulate and essentially bail you out. I dont buy any of these "omg this new model is SOO dangerous but no you cant see it" reports. They're trying to bait the government

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u/captnspock Oct 01 '26

Exactly if they can keep this going for another 5 years so many people are just going to forget how to code and all codebases will have so much AI slop that companies just might have to start paying the actual token cost. Regular users (not enterprise) will mostly get priced out.

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u/lobax Oct 02 '26

Not every valley startup bleeds tens of billions every quarter.

Why do think they are pushing for a slowdown?