The real issue here isn’t the AI-generated listings. The “reviews” being so obviously fake is what I hope gains more traction.
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Ai asking to make AI product copy
The only thing amazon had was a brand. They've sold it for short term profit and now it's just a shittier aliexpress. The question is, why not go for the real thing?
Shipping speed for me, Aliexpress is 11 days or less, Amazon Prime 2 days or less. I think its funny they’ve copied Fedex with their main routes being in-house and their last-mile being “independent” contractors (Fedex Ground / Amazon Flex), and now Fedex will copy them with their upcoming FDX platform, which I believe is supposed to be an upgrade to shoprunner that will continue to sell from other Vendors but more like how amazon and walmart do it, where its a footnote on the item details.
Yep.
If I can wait = AliExpress.
If I can’t wait=Amazon next day, then return when the AliExpress one arrives.
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Honest question here...
I was always under the impression that AliExpress is worse than Amazon. Now, Amazon is not good, I know that, but I guess the narratives I was fed is that AliExpress is like Wish, and just terrible, counterfeit/knockoff products (Amazon on that fast track), excessive data capture, and I thought CCP (probably confusing with Temu).
Anyway, can you quick explain how AliExpress is a less shitty Amazon? I'll start doing some shopping there if that's the case.
Amazon has essentially become a drop shipping front for AliExpress. You're getting the exact same terrible, knockoff products, just marked up and stored in an Amazon warehouse so you get it in two days instead of two weeks. They're both shitty, but at least with AliExpress you aren't paying extra for the middleman to make a profit.
I mean it completely depends on what you’re buying. Don’t blame Amazon that your $15 wireless earbuds with no brand name feels cheap and gets hot.
I find myself half agreeing with this and half disagreeing.
Should we not hold Amazon accountable for not vetting what's on their store?
If I went in to a physical shop and bought a knife, then when I got home the handle fell off, is it not reasonable to be angry at the brand and the shop I bought it from?
Yeah, it's not their product, but they gave the product their approval in the form of carrying the item for sale.
If Amazon marketed themselves as an open marketplace, like eBay, I'd say fair enough. But that's not what they do, Amazon markets themselves as an online store with their own warehouses. They're more akin to an online supermarket.
I don't blame Amazon for the products being shit. I blame Amazon for not doing anything about the fact the shit product has 3000 5 star reviews that are word for word on hundreds of different products.
iirc drop shipping is where they also ship it from China too. so the person dropshipping doesn't have to keep an inventory of things
and yes ofc that also happens on Amazon
if I'm buying anything on AliExpress it's usually various electronic parts and some tools. it's really good for that kind of thing, way more of that than on UK Amazon and half the price. doesn't help that I live in Ireland so occasionally you find something on UK Amazon that doesn't ship to Ireland. the downside of AliExpress is that it takes a month for whatever you buy to arrive and the website is a mess
I had thought that electronics were specifically the worst options for counterfeit items. Things labels cables not being certified, or hard external hard drives filled with flash cards. That sort of thing.
I'm in the US, so maybe our Amazon markets are notably different in choices and prices.
I'd wager they're not talking electronic parts like hard drives, but electronic parts like microcontrollers and capacitors, stuff you solder together. It is pretty good for that in my experience in the US, you just have to know what you want beforehand and be good about reading the descriptions.
That’s exactly what I use them for. LED strips, ESP32 controllers, cables, ZigBee devices for home automation, etc.
You are generally correct. But alixpress is like Amazon. If you find a good seller on their platform chances are you can build rapport and receive quality products. I know a few people who make vapes in America but buy most of their parts off aliexpress and they are all solid pcbs for the PIDs and what not. But no not gonna buy cables off aliexpress lol
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Wish is an AliExpress copycat.
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I'll bite. I disagree with this.
I buy things, I get them in a reasonable time at a reasonable price. If something is wrong, I can return. Their customer service is one of the best. I feel more comfortable buying things there with Prime since I know they'll take care of me.
I wish Prime was cheaper ... I wish everything was. Every company jacks up prices.
It's not even close to AliExpress. The quality of Amazon is far superior. I buy stuff from AliExpress and I have to wait 2 weeks, have worse customer support, etc. I bought something once and didn't get any info until it arrived at my door 4 weeks later. I asked what's up at week 3 and was told to wait till 4 before they can look into it.
Amazon is a marketplace, anyone can create a store and put up items. It's not really Amazon's fault that people have BS listings. It's not reasonable to human-vet every listing. Maybe they could have a better reporting system; idk.
Could they do better on ratings and other things? Sure. Heck they added the ai summary for reviews. I like that. Are they still the best general marketplace for consumers: in my opinion: yes.
I ordered a random endoscopic camera for a car issue. Less than 20 bucks. It'll be here in a couple days. It's from a random brand. If it works: great. If not: money back. I like the choice of random brands and maybe some I've heard of. Choice is good.
Amazon is a marketplace, anyone can create a store and put up items. It’s not really Amazon’s fault that people have BS listings. It’s not reasonable to human-vet every listing. Maybe they could have a better reporting system; idk.
I'll push back on this part. They can vet just fine by raising the barrier to entry a bit. They'd have fewer products. There'd be three USB cable vendors instead of 500. That would be OK.
Leaning into Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") can be OK in some circumstances. Leave all the gates wide open and let anyone in. Steam is a good example; I find most of my games by word of mouth, and if some shithole asset flipper wants to toss their game up there, I will probably never see it until Steph Sterling points it out.
I don't think that can work for Amazon. It's too much and fraud is rampant.
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My big issue with amazon these days is that it's flooded with trash. Like sure if you want some disposable garbage that you dont think twice about or if a very specific item you know is good is for sale on their site you can use them and their return policy is good.
But otherwise the flood of no-name vendors has become like browsing a more expensive wish.com. So many randomly generated non reputable companies selling the same rebranded knockoffs of knockoffs at various price points. It used to be that at least you could go up in price bracket and get to the actual products but now even that is hard. You can check out products worth over a hundred dollars and it still have mixed reviews and no actual brand recognition . It's gotten to the point that if its something that matters or is more that $50 I search on big box sites and either order directly for them or find the item and get it off amazon.
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They've got an unparalleled* delivery network and kind of killer vertical integration (because they keep undercutting companies that work with them).
I mean I've been boycotting Amazon / aws for almost a decade, but they're still quite powerful.
E: maybe it is paralleled idk don't @ me, I just know it's shockingly fast in NA
They're rising in popularity in the Netherlands despite having the same delivery as any other website, things are usually just cheaper or more available on Amazon.
Cheaper for now. Amazon started that way in the US as well. That's how you get everyone to switch to your platform. Then you leave it for a bit to cultivate a dependence on said platform, until finally you increase prices and rake it in. They could do this anywhere. They have the resources to undercut just about anyone for as long as it takes to starve out the competition.
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Feels like it'll be less than a year before we get AI replies in our messaging apps, then it's nothing but AI sending messages back and forth.
Sounds like the Dead Internet Theory…
Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content that is manipulated by algorithmic curation, marginalizing organic human activity. Proponents of the theory believe these bots are created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to ultimately manipulate consumers. Furthermore, some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception, stating "The U.S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence powered gaslighting of the entire world population". The date given for this "death" is generally around 2016 or 2017.The theory has gained traction because much of the observed phenomena is grounded in quantifiable phenomena like increased bot traffic. However, the idea that it is a coordinated psyop has been described by Kaitlin Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic, as a "paranoid fantasy," even if there are legitimate criticisms involving bot traffic and the integrity of the internet.
^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^
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Before leaving Reddit, I frequently saw what was clearly LLM bots having "conversations" in the comments. Shit's just starting to get weird.
It already exists. Some spambots are using LLM generated messages to reply to users (possibly for engagement/apparent legitimacy).
Won't be too long before you have two separate spam networks "talking" to each other.
AI generated messages are already in Android's Messenges client.
Where? I'd like to use it as if I cannot answer a call, I'd like it to offer a better replying option than the hardcoded ones now.
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The worst part about this is not that punters have tried it, because we all know an expect the level of scumminess we'll get from random Amazon vendors. It's that nobody upstairs noticed (or cared...) and brought the hammer down on them until actual people started complaining.
Not as of right now, it isn't. I was disappointed to see none when I searched.
Yeah same here. I tried searching a few days ago when another article first came out about this and I couldn't find anything. Even using the links in the article.
Maybe the products were all removed in response to the article?
Damn, and I'm fresh out of I'm sorry, I cannot fulfil this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy.
Some companies, shit like this coming up in the news is QA
Many companies I've worked at are like this. No need to pay for QA, let the end users test it.
AAA video games has entered the chat
This would be easy to fix. Just run the result of the first openai api call into another one asking "Is this a valid product description?". Or even cheaper, just filter out any results that contain openai.
Two facts:
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AI detection of AI has both a false positive rate and a false negative rate approximately equal to random chance.
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Filtering out any product that contains "OpenAI" as a string would preclude any books about the product; in addition to any stickers meant to identify AI-generated content, printed products decrying or identifying it, products meant to work with or connect to it, and so forth.
Generally that sort of heavy-handed automatic moderation is more trouble than it's worth.
Mmm, love the smell of spaghetti code in the morning
That's my secret, Cap. It's all spaghetti code.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The site has been playing host to items with names such as, "I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy."
One dresser previously listed on Amazon was called, "I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy.
The trend suggests companies might be using OpenAI's popular chatbot to create product descriptions, including item names, without reviewing the final results.
Another listing, which appears to be a piece of hose, is titled: "I apologize, but I cannot complete this task it requires using trademarked brand names which goes against OpenAI use policy."
Representatives for Amazon and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
In a statement shared with Futurism, the company said: "We work hard to provide a trustworthy shopping experience for customers, including requiring third-party sellers to provide accurate, informative product listings."
The original article contains 265 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 43%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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