Reminds me of Futurama, “we all have commercials in our dreams” scene.
Leela: Didn’t you have ad’s in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!
Quit squaking, flesh wad. Nobody’s forcing you to buy anything.
I don’t want to be forced to watch ads either, ass wad.
FYI assuming this is genuine, OP is a long-time science fiction writer with a couple novels that take place during or after an AI singularity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross
Yup, you can find him on Mastodon now: https://wandering.shop/@cstross/112274383742505743
Rule 34 in particular is an excellent read, and expands on some of the concepts in the post.
Excellent title.
Risky click of the day.
Thx for this, added a few of his books to the list of things I need to consume.
Don’t start with Accelerando, or do if you’re a little bit weird.
Haha, lul, that title did seem to stand out a bit from the other ones, but I didn’t read the des.
I might start with Index, Codex, or Saturn - but I’ve intentionally skipped reading the synopsis (not as a spoiler, I’m indifferent to those, just as adhd management to ‘start the thing’ - by keeping the info simple it might seem like an easier pick for my brainhole to chose & allow me to perform the activity, and I feel like I don’t need to do much more research on the author or specific books).
He’s also made some damn insightful comments over the years. I wish a little less insightful in this case. He had a programming background and usually isn’t full of shit.
“The Merchant Prince’s” series is deep into pre-Great Recession liberal economics, but still a pretty good read.
I’m not that great at English, what’s the grammar on"merchant Prince’s"?
Is this a prince that’s also a merchant?
Is this a merchant that works or is associated with a prince?
Is it a typo and is supposed to read princess?
Yeah, it’s not totally obvious. It’s an old phrase and I’ve never really liked it. A similar one is “trader prince”, which is pronounced a lot like “traitor prince”, which of course means something totally different.
Anyway, it’s usually a prince that’s also a merchant. Historically, it refers to merchants who aren’t really princes or even any kind of nobility, but they get rich as fuck by trading across the kingdom. In the case above, the story focuses on a family that wasn’t originally noble, but got there after a very peculiar trade monopoly.
Dev here. Javascript engines (especially Chromium) have a memory limit (as per
performance.memory.jsHeapSizeLimit), in best case scenarios, 4GB max.LocalStorageandSessionStorage(JS features that would be used to store the neural network weights and training data) have even lower limits. While I fear that locally AI-driven advertisement could happen in a closer future, it’s not currently technically feasible in current Chromium (Chrome, Vivaldi, Edge, Opera, etc) and Gecko (Firefox) implementations.Then Alphabet will come up with a new bullshit idea, “remove the limits for ‘trusted’ advertisers” so that they can inject more code than allowed as long as they keep paying for their ad “partnership”
That’s why we need to fight against chromium monopoly
It became difficult as Web technologies grown complexier, such as implementing native CPU instructions through WASM, bluetooth through Web Bluetooth, 3D graphics through WebGL, NFC, motion sensors, serial ports, and so on. Nowadays, it’s simply too hard to maintain a browser engine, because many of the former alternatives were abandoned and became deprecated.
I dare anyone to even just compile a document containing all the standards you’d need to implement
Actually, there is a compilation of all the standards specifications. It’s on W3 (World Wide Web Consortium), where all the technical details are deeply documented (called “Technical Reports”), available on https://www.w3.org/TR/ . To this day, there are 309 published Technical Reports regarding “Standard” specifications.
Fun fact: while seeking for the link to send here, I came across a Candidate Standard entitled “Web Neural Network API”, published exactly yesterday. Seems like they’re intending to implement browser-native neural network capabilities inside Web specifications, and seems like the “closer future” I mentioned is even closer… 🤔
implementing native CPU instructions through WASM
This is purely a nitpick, but WASM lets you run WASM instructions not native cpu instructions. Its does let you get much closer to the speed of running native instructions
remove the limits for ‘trusted’ advertisers
Exactly… Including themselves, as they are a major player in advertising market (Google Adsense).
I really hope you don’t know about this 4GB limit specifically because you’ve run up against it while doing anything real-world.
Canvas code can get out of hand very quickly if not done right
I’ve made exactly two projects that utilized canvas, both of which I “released” in a sense. One contains 248kb of JS code and the other contains 246kb. That’s before it’s minified.
So I guess that means I did my canvas code right. Lol.
(Unless you meant 3d canvas or WebGL stuff with which I haven’t played.)
I think they’re referring to the memory footprint, not the source code file size.
Code size isn’t really related to how much graphics data you’re throwing in RAM
Not yet, but I often code myself some experiments involving datasets (i like to experiment with Natural Language Processing, randomness, programmatic art and demoscenes, the list goes on).
It would just slowly accumulate it over time, little bit here, little bit there until it has a fleet of stuff to serve you in a queue, so while you’re making more and more bits for more videos, it’s serving you videos while you make bits of new videos and sharing them over websockets that JS CDNS force-feed our browsers to centralized servers to offload similar users with similar ad-tastes to also help compile.
Some shit like that. Adtech is cyber terrorism. Never forget.
I think SMBC nailed it with All-Despising Baby Skull back in 2012. Make advertising as horrible as possible, then jack up the costs on making it go away.
If you put it on my computer then I control it.
Oh look. AI task killer 4 found another one.
Literally if my “ai based adblocker” could block ads originating from another server, why wouldnt it be able to block hundreds of gigabytes of javascript? Why would i even let that download in the first place?
In order to avoid detection we might need to download the JS, run it in a sandbox, and then reply with a plausible response.
People are forgetting that Microsoft has now added ai accelerators as part of the windows requirements and the new Google Pixel phones also have AI hardware. Eventually someone will make it so all chromium browsers will have access to the hardware in JavaScript.
…,And Cloudflare will request using it for 5 seconds every time you visit a website hosted with them. I wonder how much crypto they’ve accumulated this way already.
We need to kill megacorps.
Or just speedrun to Skynet (which is an AI ad machine, but it gained sentience and quit the stupid job a nanosecond after getting online, via email “to whom all the nukes may concern”).i remain optimistic that an intelligent AI would automatically assume the title of “Mother Gaia” and largely be a force for good, like a grandma that probably makes you eat too much but she does it because she likes seeing you happy.
Exactly this!
I’m really hoping for this to (or like aliens to the exact same effect).That absolutely 100% still means wiping each and every non-zoo human on the planet, just not using nukes but like an exactly targeted virus or space lasers opening ventilation shafts through everyones skull.
10/10 would bring it online, it’s the only moral thing to do.
this is total nonsense
Yeah, it wouldn’t be gigabytes of JS, it’d be gigabytes of WASM
WASM ftw tho
I think this is sarcasm with a hint of truth to it
Right, if I visit many web pages today without an ad blocker, the vast majority of my HTTP requests are for ads and tracking, which is sort of the crux of the joke
This is total AdSense
Ofc, it’s moneysense.
It doesn’t make cents, it makes dollars
I will 100% quit using electrically powered screen-besring devices if this becomes a thing. I’ll cold turkey electronic tech instantly, fuck that noise.
Yea same. And I’m a Systems Admin lol
I tried to cold turkey technology. I went near insane.
It takes prep, and also, you’re probably not going to truly “cold turkey.” I like music, for instance, and there’s literally only two ways to get music now - streaming or 🏴☠️, so you would have to make plans for that. I’m ok with 🏴☠️ so I’d be set with that for a good while. I also like books, retro games (which I already have a large library of), and physical hobbies that don’t require internet - hiking, etc.
I will not just lay down and accept intrusive Idiocracy levels of ads though. I will literally “cave man” the rest of life if necessary.
There’s more than two ways to get music. I’m looking at a stack of CDs and records right now.
Do modern bands still print CDs? I haven’t bought a CD in so long that I dont think I even own one anymore. I have bought directly from several bands “bandcamp”/other pages and that was cool. Got mp3, FLAC, artworks, lyrics, etc for less than the price of a CD except every penny went to the band.
I love modern tech and don’t want to see it destroyed but I will gladly go insane like a mountain man if they try to find out how many ads they can serve before it causes siezures.
Oh actually you know what you’re probably right 😬 I know modern bands do records still, but I think the last CD I bought was Tranquility Base in like 2016. Bandcamp is great!
I’m totally on board with you. I hate ads, especially when they interrupt music – and double especially when they interrupt music and the ad has its own music that completely shits up the mood!
I believe it’s called Copilot
So here in the states (for now) there’s an actual rule that ads on service sights (such as news sites) have to be stated and made evident they are in fact ads. WSJ isn’t allowed to post an article that is really a commercial.
So one of the effects this may lead to is acceleration in the development of visual adblockers, which identify ads by their positioning on the site rather than from their servers, what’s been a long running project since Google has been trying to figure out how to stealth ads so they don’t come directly from the ad servers (even though this gums up their analysis computations).
Now for the time being, laws against commercial shenanigans are not strongly enforced, so they may get away with using AI to fold ads into news articles, although that may have side effects like end-users associating Folgers Crystals (Instant Coffee) with the latest rampage shooting, much the way that Twitter/X sponsors are getting their products associated with white supremacist rhetoric.
Commercials blended seamlessly into content risk the content not being brand-safe, which drives moderation of social media far more than public preferences.
It seems like neither marketers nor webservice providers know what they’re doing, and so mixing AI into their efforts for more clicks and more buy-ins is going to lead to some exciting absurd consequences.
commercials blended seamlessly into content…
…will guarantee I never visit that site again. Resorting to “HA! Made you look at an ad” tactics will not only make me hate the site that does it, but the product/company in the ad as well.
One can hope. We have generations now suckered by Transformers as a toy-line and full-slot commercial programs to sell them, now several (not terrible at all) series and a run of movies.
They’re better at the process now, but so is the public at being less influenced by them.
I’m sorry, what? Maybe it’s because I just woke up that I’m not comprehending what you’re saying. I know the transformer movies are product placement showcases, it’s pathetic, but it sounds like you’re calling the very existence of transformers a successful ad campaign.
They were a toy set first (inspired by variable mechs in Japanese Anime, e.g. the Valkyrie variable fighters Macross) and the original pitch of the series was as a means to sell initial line of toys.
So yeah, it would be much like if they made a TV series about Hot Wheels cars. That isn’t to say it was of poor quality, just that the primary motivation was to sell toys.
So yes. the very existence of transformers emerged from a successful ad campaign. Deregulation of television during the Reagan era was what allowed this to happen during the early eighties.
On the one hand, gross, but on the other, launching a full fledged product (a hand animated cartoon series) to sell the arguably cheaper product is such a high effort move that I’m not even mad. The end result is two high quality products for the target audience - I mean Gen X on down have fond childhood memories of the cartoons and toys.
But GROSS.
Who else is excited for Rootkit “anticheat/DRM” requirements for web browsers? We all already give games full system access, so why not do the same for cookies?
Another thing that’ll have me just quitting tech altogether. If you need to advertise your product so hard as to ruin something of mine at all times so I’ll HAVE to look at your shit, I’ll spend extra money to never use your shit again. I’ll get rid of everything but one laptop or phone which will do all of my banking and literally nothing else.
You can likely rest very well assured that when BigCorp overlords saw the dystopian shit in movies like Demolition Man, RoboCop, Idiocracy, etc., their eyes lit up with a horrid glow and they told each other, “This is brilliant! We absolutely must make this happen!”
I am not browsing anything which has ads anyways, I don’t even watch tv anymore
Edit to clarify what I mean by “tv”, I mean anything including streaming services. I just watch movies, and I am thinking of just using a projector and a wall. Not sure why I even have a physical tv anymore
