Time Magazine Now Running Ads Meant Specifically to Influence AI Agents

2026-08-09 14:29 UTC

cross-posted from: sopuli.xyz/post/50015379 “Maybe it’s more important to influence the agent than even the human, because with a human you influence one person,” Mobian cofounder and CEO Jonah Goodhart told Digiday. “When you influence ChatGPT, you’re influencing potentially all of ChatGPT. If ChatGPT changes what it says about [a brand], it’s massive and it’s more than any one campaign could ever do.” If I was this dumb I surely would be smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

Replies (4)

@Rhaedas@fedia.io 2026-08-09 14:36

Maybe not dumb as much as "you can't stop us at this point, so I'm bragging." People always reference Idiocracy as some prediction, but Don't Look Up is far more on the nose, and has this very thing suggested, where the phone apps order shit instantly based on viral videos from celebs. Maybe that movie isn't mentioned because it is too close to real and that's very uncomfortable.

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@zogwarg@awful.systems 2026-08-10 02:37

I was thinking “Hey I want that markdown!” (although maybe not for time magazine), but the actual example is dystopian. If you want to stare at the abyss it’s achievable with curl -H ‘user-agent: ClaudeBot’ https://url_to_article, and it’s like 70% SEO crap tailored to brainwash LLMs (more realistically “agents” in limited context).

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@Soyweiser@awful.systems 2026-08-10 06:21

Wasnt there a song or a commercial that directly tried to make siri order something?

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@CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2026-08-09 22:00

This is an old scam: the Internet has been filled with sites which just exist to boost another site in search results for twenty years. Creating essay-like slop to convince the bot that Burma Shave is great and Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia is the same business as hiring writers in India to convince Google bot that your car dealership is the best car dealership.

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