maybe ai ads are a good thing

To sell something today, you have to direct a buyer’s attention towards your product.

If someone has already identified their problem and is looking for a solution, a business might get their attention with SEO, ad targeting, trade shows and the like.

For other types of sales, getting attention means putting on a show and positioning your brand in the viewer’s line of sight. If I want to sell Doritos, I buy a billboard at the Super Bowl. If I want to sell makeup, I have Kim K name drop it during a drama-fueled episode of The Kardashians. If I want you to watch my movie, I print salacious stories about the movie star in the tabloids. If I want you to vote for me or donate to my campaign, I pay social media influencers to drum up a controversy that only I can solve for you.

The attention getter is not the product: it’s the entertainment, the controversy, or maybe just a beautiful person. This is very noisy - only a small fraction of billboard viewers are in the target audience, and even fewer convert to a sale.

It also, and more impactfully, creates all sorts of side effects that are detrimental to society. The beautiful, photoshopped model creates insecurity and unrealistic expectations around relationships. The manufactured controversy isolates people from their community and guides them towards self-defeating decisions. The salacious stories keep people’s faces glued to their devices instead of living in the real world.

It’s possible AI ads would change that dynamic by removing the need for that anti-social noise. I solve a lot of problems with Gemini - things like “why is my baby so fussy” and “what gauge of wire do I need to connect this battery to my circuit”. Gemini could simply suggest what, if anything, that I need to buy. This collapses the process that goes from attention to purchase because my problem is very clearly defined - even if I didn’t really know what the problem was in the first place.

Admittedly, this idea is hard for me to fully wrap my head around - because are Doritos really a solution to anything? How much of what is being sold isn’t a solution, but rather taking advantage of people’s impulses and insecurities. Maybe nothing will change and this will become another noise-filled channel.