OpenAI Researcher Quits Over Ads, Warns ChatGPT Heading Down Facebook Path: 'Erosion Of Principles'

A former OpenAI researcher has resigned in protest of the company's decision to introduce advertisements in its popular chatbot. In a guest essay for The New York Times, Zoe Hitzig revealed she stepped down on the same day the company began testing ads within ChatGPT. She cautioned that the shift risks steering OpenAI toward the same data-driven trajectory that compromised Facebook's ethical standards

Having spent two years at OpenAI, helping shape how its AI models were built and priced, Hitzig explained that the decision by the Sam Altman-led company meant that she could not continue.

“I once believed I could help the people building AI get ahead of the problems it would create. This week confirmed my slow realisation that OpenAI seems to have stopped asking the questions I'd joined to help answer," she wrote.

Drawing parallels to Facebook, Hitzig said the social media company, in its early days of ads, also promised users that they would have control over their data and the ability to vote on policy changes. However, over time, those promises were broken as the ad revenue started flowing in.

“I believe the first iteration of ads will probably follow those principles. But I'm worried subsequent iterations won't, because the company is building an economic engine that creates strong incentives to override its own rules," she wrote.

"The erosion of OpenAI's principles to maximise engagement may already be underway. It's against company principles to optimise user engagement solely to generate more advertising revenue, but it has been reported that the company already optimises for daily active users anyway."

Hitzig admitted that ads were not immoral or unethical and that running an AI enterprise was an expensive venture but added that she had "deep reservations about OpenAI's strategy". She claimed that since ChatGPT has a massive archive of data based on its intimate interaction with users, the same customers could be manipulated in ways that we have no idea of knowing, at least currently.

"People tell chatbots about their medical fears, their relationship problems and their beliefs about God and the afterlife. Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don't have the tools to understand, let alone prevent."

Hitzig is not the only one to be perplexed by OpenAI moving too quickly to introduce ads into its services. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis expressed similar sentiments, warning that rushing ads into AI assistants could erode user trust.

"I'm a little bit surprised they've moved so early into that. I mean, look, ads, there's nothing wrong with ads, they funded much of the consumer internet. And if done well, they can be useful," said Hassabis.

"But in the realm of assistants, and if you think of the chatbot as an assistant that's meant to be helpful - and ideally, in my mind, as they become more powerful, the kind of technology that works for you as the individual...there is a question about how ads fit into that model? You want to have trust in your assistant, so how does that work?" he questioned.

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Ads In ChatGPT

Valued at over $500 billion, OpenAI has been losing more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit. The latest effort by the San Francisco-based company is to monetise ChatGPT's more than 800 million users, most of whom use the chatbot for free.

OpenAI said the digital ads will appear at the bottom of ChatGPT's answers “when there's a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation".

Originally founded as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build better-than-human AI, OpenAI last year reorganised its ownership structure and converted its business into a public benefit corporation.