While OpenAI continues to insist that there are currently no ads — or tests for advertising — live on ChatGPT, the company’s chief researcher Mark Chen also recognized that the company has been “lagging behind” with recent advertising messages and is working to improve the experience.
Chen and other OpenAI executives were responding to posts from paying ChatGPT subscribers who complained about seeing ads for companies like Peloton and Target.
In response, the company said it was only testing ways to display apps built on the ChatGPT app platform announced in Octoberwith “no financial component” to these proposals. (One of the users who originally complained about the ads he replied incredulouslywriting, “Bruhhh… Don’t insult paying users.”)
Likewise, ChatGPT head Nick Turley posted on friday that he was “seeing a lot of confusion about the ChatGPT advertising rumours”.
“There are no live tests for ads – the screenshots you’ve seen are either not real or not ads,” Turley wrote. “If we pursue ads, we’ll take a cautious approach. People trust ChatGPT, and everything we do will be designed to respect that.”
Earlier in the day, however, Chen he responded in a more apologetic tone, acknowledging that the controversy is not simply a matter of confusing users.
“I agree that anything resembling advertising should be treated with caution and we didn’t,” he wrote. “We’ve turned off these kinds of suggestions while we improve the accuracy of the model. We’re also looking at better controls so you can type it in or turn it off if you don’t find it useful.”
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Earlier this year, former Instacart and Facebook executive Fidji Sumo joined OpenAI as Chief Applications Officer and was widely expected to to set up the company’s advertising business. However, the Wall Street Journal reported This week, a recent memo from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a “code red,” prioritizing work to improve ChatGPT’s quality and push out other products, including advertising.
