Use of Artificial Intelligence in Targeted Advertising and Consumer Manipulation

ABSTRACT
AI has been quickly embraced by advertising, and this has fundamentally reshaped how brands connect with people. Now AI provides ways to aim ads at very specific people, create content tailored to each person, automatically make ad designs, and adjust ads as they are running, all to make brand interactions seem seamless and personalized. But paradoxically, AI is weakening people’s ability to make their own choices and their right to privacy. A particularly concerning development is “dark patterns”, which are designs of interfaces (websites, apps, etc) that use tricks and subtle suggestions to get you to decide to do something you might not otherwise do. These tricks have been around for a while, but AI makes them far more extensive, precise in their effect on your thinking and much harder to notice or control with the usual ways of policing them.
This sneaky influence happens in many different places online, and is more than what older regulations like stopping things before they happen, being obliged to be open about what you’re doing and telling consumers what’s going on can deal with. Because of this, new ways of regulating are being developed. Tools for consumers, such as programs to counteract algorithms or ad blockers, help people to avoid being manipulated. Also, companies are beginning to create internal guidelines, based on being a socially responsible business, so they can check and lower the dangers of their algorithms before they start using them. These approaches to self-regulation go with official legal oversight and help with the special problems AI causes.
This article looks at both sides of AI in advertising, its ability to really improve how we experience brands and its power to get us to decide things in a systematic, manipulative way. By looking at these opposing forces, we’ll show how important it is to have rules that can change as things evolve, and that both allow for new ideas and protect our ability to choose in a market that is run by AI.