Image: Pexels Hatice Baran
OpenAI has turned off ads appearing on ChatGPT while it works out how best to improve the model’s precision, its top researchers said.
In early December, a user complained about the nonsensical way in which ChatGPT was showing ads for Target below a conversation the user was having about Windows’ BitLocker. In repsonse, Mark Chen, the chief research officer at OpenAI, said that the company would look into the situation.
Late on Friday, Chen confirmed that the ads had been paused. “I agree that anything that feels like an ad needs to be handled with care, and we fell short,” Chen said in a post on Twitter / X. “We’ve turned off this kind of suggestion while we improve the model’s precision. We’re also looking at better controls so you can dial this down or off if you don’t find it helpful.”
As LLMs have emerged as an alternative to search, their owners have wrestled with how to monetize the queries their users enter. Some, like Google Gemini, have turned to AI Mode, slurping up third-party content recommendations and aggregating them, with tiny links back to the original source of content. Microsoft’s Copilot has also occasionally embedded ads, though they’re much less frequent on searches that I have made personally.
The story was originally reported by The Verge.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers’ News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.