Variations on a Theme

The dentist’s waiting room had a TV mounted in the corner, muted, captions on. Some business channel showing a green chart going up and to the right like it meant something. A ticker at the bottom listing stocks I’d never own.

The captions read: MARKET HITS NEW ALL-TIME HIGH.

An old guy across from me smiled at his phone. Checking his 401(k), probably. Feeling rich. I wanted to tell him something I’d heard recently — an MIT professor saying the stock market looks expensive as hell, price-to-earnings through the roof, could be a bubble — but who wants that conversation from a stranger in a waiting room?

The Predictable Evolution of AI Economics: OpenAI's Dance with Advertising

Let’s talk about the inevitability of advertising in AI systems, or what happens when computational idealism meets economic reality. OpenAI’s recent moves toward advertising shouldn’t surprise anyone who understands how information processing systems evolve under resource constraints.

Here’s the fascinating part: OpenAI, which started as a nonprofit dedicated to beneficial AI, is following a path as predictable as a deterministic algorithm. They’re hiring ad executives from Google and Meta, while their CFO Sarah Friar performs the classic corporate dance of “we’re exploring options” followed by “we have no active plans.” It’s like watching a chess game where you can see the checkmate coming five moves ahead.