Amazon tells employees it isn’t falling behind on AI

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/08/amazon-ai-chatgpt-falling-behind/

by marban • 3 years ago

22 20 3 years ago

If they weren't, they probably wouldn't feel the need to say it.

I haven't ever associated Amazon with advanced ML research, or even a basic aptitude at using "AI" (heavy air quotes) to make their products better. I guess there is Alexa but that is largely a failure for anything other than basic tasks. It is def better than Siri but Siri must be a meme at this point because as I've said in a previous comment, it is beyond terrible.

I used to buy items from Amazon and I still get pages and pages of suggestions from these one off purchases that are so irrelevant, I think a 3rd year CS undergrad (if that) could write a better recommendations engine if given a user purchase history API and a product catalog API and legit nothing else

ftxbro• 3 years ago

If they weren't, they probably wouldn't feel the need to say it.

it got strong 'lady doth protest' energy

KeplerBoy• 3 years ago

I believe they are pretty far ahead in some applied AI stuff.

They will probably be the first to have mostly automated warehouses for general goods. So a lot of robotics and computer vision. Not as flashy as the new wave of generative models, but getting the robotics and models reliable enough for production will be valuable.

arthurcolle3• 3 years ago

Yeah that's totally true, I completely forgot about all the robotics and I think it was the Kiva acquisition right - I was thinking too narrowly and only focused on stuff that I've found as easily usable as the GPT series of models

flangola7• 3 years ago

Don't look up Rekognition

arthurcolle3• 3 years ago

Ah yeah I forgot about that

bob1029• 3 years ago

I guess there is Alexa

There is "AI" and then there is the AI we have today.

Alexa is in the same class as Watson when it comes to intelligence. You can reproduce most of its effects using old techniques on cheap hardware. NLP and statistical classification is incredibly powerful if you throw enough resources at it. These approaches are also mostly deterministic and easy to incrementally improve (to a limit - i.e. they can't generate arbitrary output).

LLMs are like enriching uranium by comparison. Unless someone at the top thought 'damn we need one of those things soon' a few years ago, there would not likely be much progress to talk about today.

AlchemistCamp• 3 years ago

They sent me an email yesterday saying, "Thanks for purchasing from Amazon Basics. Here's a new product we think you'll like".

It was a nonstick top-entry cat litter box. I don't own a cat. I've never owned a cat.

jabradoodle• 3 years ago

Predicting that you own a cat isn't necessarily a bad prediction just because you don't.

pyuser583• 3 years ago

Amazon still thinks I’m a woman.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

They are not behind but under, would say in worse position than apple

pg938hkd• 3 years ago

I think Amazon doesn’t even know what they are selling anymore because sellers are gaming the algorithm and swapping items out after they get good reviews.

sureglymop• 3 years ago

Amazon is a website i truly never understood. The website is absolutely terrible.. i mean the layout and styling alone makes me click of before i would ever input my credit card information. It boggles my mind that it manages to be one of the biggest online marketplaces while looking that sketchy. I have to say though, I'm not from the US and in my country a different online marketplace with a pretty great website and ux won over amazon. It's pretty much the local amazon, just not bad and actually usable.

searchableguy• 3 years ago

Two reasons I use amazon in India over rest.

1. Customer support.

2. Logistics and delivery service.

I don't care much about the listing or app since I know what I want to buy and I search for it directly.

gloryjulio• 3 years ago

1 month return + first party seller is great

_fat_santa• 3 years ago

Unlike Google and Microsoft, Amazon is in a different position here. While chatbots are very disruptive to Google's and Microsofts (Search) business, I don't see how it would impact Amazon. For Amazon they have many potential upsides to implementing AI, but unlike search engine companies, people are still going to go to them even if they don't implement it.

Seems that every big tech company is getting LLM FOMO. Some companies (like Google) rightly have this FOMO because would directly impact their business, but I just don't see that with Amazon.

russellbeattie• 3 years ago

You definitely aren’t getting it.

“I need a gift for a five year old girl who likes bugs. Can you recommend some?”

“My 2012 Kia Sportage needs a roof rack, what are the best options?”

“I need to return the shirt I just bought, what do I do?”

“My package was marked as delivered but I didn’t receive it.”

“How do I turn on kids mode on my new Fire TV?”

“I want to give Prime to my grandmother, how do I do that?”

“I bought some shoes a few years ago, is there some like it available now?”

“I want a Hawaiian shirt in size 4x large, made from cotton, less than $30.”

Etc.

ctvo• 3 years ago

There’s no rush for Amazon. They’re not going to lose customers because they don’t have this.

Amazon didn’t invent search, but they have search on their website. You wouldn’t say they’re necessarily a search company, but I’m sure that’s their most important revenue generating feature for retail.

Replace search with LLM + search. They’ll wait for this to shake out, implement an “OK” LLM for their site baselined on industry standards and will have everything you outlined.

It’s not existential, and will be another feature they provide, like developing a mobile app when smart phones became a thing.

ranguna• 3 years ago

The chatbot will give me an answer to each of those questions and I'll look for the recommended product on amazon.

brutusurp• 3 years ago

Linking the conversation on the Huggingface-AWS partnership, which preemptively calls out Amazon for taking credit for the accomplishments of HuggingFace: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34885117.

Amazon tells employees it isn’t falling behind on AI

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