From PC World: I was just speaking with a coworker who asked an AI for help in opening a brokerage account, and he told me how it doled out some general tips before recommending a specific investment firm, praising its easy-to-use website and even serving up a ready-to-click URL.
Wait, my colleague wondered: Was that a sponsored answer?
I’m pretty sure the answer my friend got wasn’t actually an ad; more likely, the AI had searched some how-to sites on the web and may have picked up one written by that particular brokerage.
But that very doubt about the AI’s reply is the point. We’re already wary (as we should be) of AI doling out hallucinations in its conversations with us. Soon, we’ll be wondering more and more whether an AI’s answer has been bought and paid for.
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