One cool thing I noticed about my polarized sunglasses is that they block most screens at public places. No ClearChannel ads for me while waiting for public transport!
Not with the attitude! An ad-scrubbing AR filter is certainly thinkable, though probably not actually practical as long as strapping goggles to your face in public is considered the preserve of terminal dorks.
However, if it did happen, the arms race to prevent ad evasion in real life would be interesting. Glass Earth, Inc. by Stephen Baxter is a good short read along the extension of those lines (though the image of a multibillion satellite communications monopoly using a vast fleet of, uh, 67 geosynchronous satellites hasn't dated well!)
Ironically there's an AI filter that's classified you as an ad, and is erasing you from our field of vision as we speak. HN's spam filter is... not a frontier AI, to put it politely. You can email the mods to get your new account whitelisted!
Bottom of my list of concerns, whereas at the top is being surveilled and psychologically manipulated on an individual or group level. I am very sensitive about it...
I'm disappointed that nobody's tried to be properly contrary yet. How about this: adverts are a service. If they work properly, they provide information about new products that interest you. If you didn't want to know about the products, the advertisers didn't want to tell you, so really you have the same goals. The only problem is that billboards aren't targeted. Hence we need to replace billboards with more tracking, face recognition, mood recognition, AR glasses, brain implants, and enable people to be constantly surrounded by enjoyable adverts.
