Fascinating.
There were previous attempts to monetize own attention-time by sharing
the ad income between content providers and victims themselves, but it
never worked because the opt-in/on-boarding was complex, and payments
were expensive in the absence of efficient micropayment systems.
The willing bot network technology, where it is technically impossible
to remotely distinguish human attention from automata, may turn the
whole Internet business/influence/big data model upside down.
Instead on wasting money on anti-virus software and ad blockers, people
could monetize their own internet/mobile connections by intentionally
installing bots/AI and auctioning for getting hit by ads, or tweeting
support (with premiums for using verified real names.) The money is
unlikely to come from those paying for ads (as they would avoid ad
networks that participate in this,) but it may come from competition,
commercial or political. Such adversaries would pay to create misleading
data - interest in product, support for ideology, candidate, etc.
We are already seeing willing manual 'bots', party zealots, who
intensely promote politics, issues and candidates, often for direct
remuneration. It seems we're close to the moment where AI, network
technologies and payment systems will enable presently passive targets
to participate in the ad/big data/campaign economy.
While it may sound preposterous today that people will massively rent
out their (real or fake) Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn credentials, to be
used from their own home/mobile devices, impossible to distinguish from
the 'genuine' use, some will. It is a small step from being cool with no
privacy to outright renting out one's persona (if you have any doubts,
check out the booming business of live porn sites - in 1990s we had one
JenniCam, now there are tens of thousands, and there is one in your block.)
The questions are: what is the critical mass to kill the concept of
online presence, and how long it will take. The rest are technical
problems, and those get solved. The Internet may, once again, route
around the damage.
On 12/22/16, 5:12, nettime's failing bot net wrote:
[looks like the most promising digital business model in years.]
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