Amazon's AI chatbot Rufus is now live for all US customers

I noticed that Rufus popped up for me a few weeks ago in the Amazon app on my pocket supercomputer. It was late and I was bored when I first saw it, so I dinked around with it for a bit.

It was clearly and obviously ChatGPT, and it was stupendously simple to jailbreak it to do arbitrary ChatGPT things (by basically just giving it verbal permission to do so).

It wrote some dummy code for me. It dabbled around with fairly simple physics questions. (I don't verify any of the output -- I was just goofing around.)

By the very next day, I couldn't get it to do any of that at all, but it was still capable of having a potentially-productive conversation about stuff for sale on Amazon. I expected that this might develop into something actually-useful at some point, and it seemed like it was getting closer.

But more recently, it doesn't even remember what the last prompt was, so conversations (even about product details that would help me make a purchase) are a foregone conclusion.

Thus, Rufus is presently approximately as annoying and devoid of context with its insipid repetitiousness as my nearly-useless Alexa devices are.

poikroequ2• 2 years ago

I tested it out. I asked what is the TBW on an SSD. It got it wrong of course, said 400tbw when the correct value is 600tbw.

Don't trust chatbots, kids.

But what's terrible, there used to be a spot where you can search questions and reviews by keyword. That's gone now and they've replaced it with this generative AI crap. Rather than seeing useful answers/reviews with extra details and context, now all you get is an oversimplified AI generated summary that's likely wrong, and you have no way of verifying apart from skimming through the thousands of reviews.

malshe• 2 years ago

But what's terrible, there used to be a spot where you can search questions and reviews by keyword. That's gone now and they've replaced it with this generative AI crap. Rather than seeing useful answers/reviews with extra details and context, now all you get is an oversimplified AI generated summary that's likely wrong, and you have no way of verifying apart from skimming through the thousands of reviews.

Damn, this sucks big time! This was a really useful feature

GloriousKoji• 2 years ago

After you ask the question and wait way too long to generate an AI response there's a "Show related answers" link which works like the old search. So it's not completely gone just yet.

poikroequ2• 2 years ago

I see it in the Amazon app. Thanks for pointing this out!

I also checked the Amazon website today and now I see the old search box. I would guess they're doing A/B testing right now.

nothercastle• 2 years ago

Just rename it to Dufus to be an indicator of what it can actually do

spacecadet2• 2 years ago

I snorted, thank you.

latentsea• 2 years ago

Isn't there some chess grandmaster who's catchphrase is "Rufus and dufus"? This made me remember that.

funkychicken• 2 years ago

Ben Finegold!

spacecadet2• 2 years ago

I was able to get Rufus (in beta) to sell me combinations of items that would lead to my death or dismemberment. Fun times.

I also got the Kardashian(?) bot on Meta to create skin care products using deadly chemicals. LOL.

insane_dreamer• 2 years ago

it's like if you don't have an AI chatbot, no matter whether it actually improves the customer experience, are you even a company?

add-sub-mul-div2• 2 years ago

It would be interesting to have a list of companies not run by NPCs mindlessly chasing after the perceived next big thing.

nyxtom• 2 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

Amazon's AI chatbot Rufus is now live for all US customers

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