Currently, the cost of ML R&D has a floor based on what advertising companies are willing to pay people to work in the space. This actually has a huge upside, as most of the tools that have made ML so accessible (pytorch, tensorflow, all the research advances) are coming out of these companies. But it has the downside that if I want to get someone to work on my ML problem I have to compete with what google and fb can pay.
A consequence, I guess, is that there are lots of unexplored / underexplored problems waiting to be tackled, and there are tools around that can make it happen. If there is a reckoning in the advertising space, there will be lots of other applications to focus on.
Well, one issue is that Google and FB can finance said research because they make so much money off ads to begin with, and by doing so essentially provide enough funding to keep the field going
So this reckoning in the advertising space would only be a net positive for society if others came in to fill that funding gap and threw enough money at researchers to keep the field afloat in a similar fashion
A consequence, I guess, is that there are lots of unexplored / underexplored problems waiting to be tackled, and there are tools around that can make it happen. If there is a reckoning in the advertising space, there will be lots of other applications to focus on.