The Leading Explanation for What's Going on With Online Ads?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Online ads have always been terrible to a degree. But for some reason, in the past few months, they've gotten worse. The Apple AFT chain seems to be one of the leading explanations why this is happening.

“I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘”

A conversation with Bing AI (aka Sydney) turns romantic and bizarre. Why Microsoft’s AI search tool appears more powerful — and unsettling — than we thought. Then, inside Elon Musk’s quest to be the most popular user on Twitter.

Plus: It’s not just you. Online ads have gotten much worse.

On today’s episode:

Tiffany Hsu is a technology reporter at The New York Times who covers misinformation and disinformation.
Zoë Schiffer is the managing editor of Platformer.

Additional reading:

Bing AI appeared to have a split personality in a conversation with Kevin Roose, a “Hard Fork” co-host.
Elon Musk ordered changes to Twitter’s algorithm after his Tweets did not perform as well as he desired.
Why digital ads are so bad these days.