Month: February 2026

I’m Sorry, LinkedIn!

I’m sorry, LinkedIn!

Earlier this week, as a major storm took aim at the little island where I live, I saw a story in which Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, defended his company’s energy use by comparing it to how much energy humans use to do similar tasks.

“…it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” he argued, when asked about AI’s insatiable – and destructive – appetite for energy. “It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you.”

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First Look at OpenAI Ads

Well, they’re here. Just a quick note for now (lots more to say later, but a board meeting in SF means that’ll be later) – OpenAI is rolling out ads to its free and “Go” paid tier. The ads look…harmless enough, just a sponsored link unit with small graphics at the bottom of the chat. Pretty much the exact launch playbook we saw from Google 25 years ago, and Facebook in 2012. A rudimentary prototype of what will become, over the next few years, an increasingly sophisticated monetization platform that, let’s face it, will probably make Instagram look tame.

OpenAI also rolled out some pledges: “We decide which ad to show by matching ads submitted by advertisers with the topic of your conversation, your past chats, and past interactions with ads. For example, if you’re researching recipes, you may see ads for meal kits or grocery delivery. If there are multiple advertisers, we’ll select the one that is most relevant to your chat to show you first….Advertisers do not have access to your chats, chat history, memories, or personal details. Advertisers only receive aggregate information about how their ads perform such as number of views or clicks.”

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Claude Says Non to Ads

Yesterday I wrote a short post on the impact that advertising would have on generative AI, a topic I’ve been thinking and writing about for the past three years. Seems the folks at Anthropic have been thinking about it too, and this morning they gave their thoughts full voice.

“Claude is a space to think,” the company announced in a blog post that promised to never let advertising creep into its core consumer product. “The history of ad-supported products suggests that advertising incentives, once introduced, tend to expand over time as they become integrated into revenue targets and product development, blurring boundaries that were once more clear-cut. We’ve chosen not to introduce these dynamics into Claude.”

This is exactly the point I was making in yesterday’s post – “Advertising Built Generative AI. Now Comes the Remodel.” And while Anthropic’s written post is both thoughtful and measured, the company also launched a four-pack of ads illustrating its point – ads that they will be running during the SuperBowl this weekend. Yep, the SuperBowl.

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Advertising Built Generative AI. Now Comes the Remodel.

Don’t worry, Don’s going to take it from here.

Last night my wife looked up from her phone, disgusted. “All I’m getting is Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Attia!” she said. “Why do they think I’m interested in this?!”

As the family’s resident interpreter of digital entrails, I felt responsible to hazard an answer, but given the prurient nature of the Epstein story, I sensed my thoughts might not be well received. So I backed into it a bit: “Have you clicked on any Epstein-related links recently?” I asked. She had, she rejoined, wary of the implicit judgement hovering over my question. “But that doesn’t mean I want my entire feed to be about it!”

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