the crazy part isn’t the product review, that’s actually the customer’s “name” which apparently has no length limit now?
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It’s been so many years since I last created a Buyer Account (we already have more than we need, these days, some from the 90s) that I don’t remember what the limitations are - or if there are any.
I strongly suspect that the LLM pulled that ‘name’ from another Product Review, for the ASIN linked below, and substituted it for the Buyer Account Name.
Meanwhile in my Amazon newsletter today
AI is now more intelligent then the sellers. sad
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** Lazy use of AI leads to Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request”**
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- Lazy use of AI leads to Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request”
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The telltale error messages are a sign of AI-generated pablum all over the Internet.
KYLE ORLAND - 1/12/2024, 3:56 PM
Enlarge / I know naming new products can be hard, but these Amazon sellers made some particularly odd naming choices.
Amazon
FURTHER READING
Amazon marketplace crackdown has sellers searching for legal help
Amazon users are at this point used to search results filled with products that are fraudulent, scams, or quite literally garbage. These days, though, they also may have to pick through obviously shady products, with names like “I’m sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy.”
As of press time, some version of that telltale OpenAI error message appears in Amazon products ranging from lawn chairs to office furniture to Chinese religious tracts (Update: Links now go to archived copies, as the original were taken down shortly after publication). A few similarly named products that were available as of this morning have been taken down as word of the listings spreads across social media (one such example is archived here).
Enlarge / ProTip: Don’t ask OpenAI to integrate a trademarked brand name when generating a name for your weird length of rubber tubing.
Other Amazon product names don’t mention OpenAI specifically but feature apparent AI-related error messages, such as “Sorry but I can’t generate a response to that request” or “Sorry but I can’t provide the information you’re looking for,” (available in a variety of colors). Sometimes, the product names even highlight the specific reason why the apparent AI-generation request failed, noting that OpenAI can’t provide content that “requires using trademarked brand names” or “promotes a specific religious institution” or, in one case, “encourage unethical behavior.”
Enlarge / The repeated invocation of a “commitment to providing reliable and trustworthy product descriptions” cited in this description is particularly ironic.
The descriptions for these oddly named products are also riddled with obvious AI error messages like, “Apologies, but I am unable to provide the information you’re seeking.” One product description for a set of tables and chairs (which has since been taken down) hilariously noted: “Our [product] can be used for a variety of tasks, such [task 1], [task 2], and [task 3]].” Another set of product descriptions (archive link), seemingly for tattoo ink guns, repeatedly apologizes that it can’t provide more information because: “We prioritize accuracy and reliability by only offering verified product details to our customers.”
Spam spam spam spam
Using large language models to help generate product names or descriptions isn’t against Amazon policy. On the contrary, in September, Amazon launched its own generative AI tool to help sellers “create more thorough and captivating product descriptions, titles, and listing details.” And we could only find a small handful of Amazon products slipping through with the telltale error messages in their names or descriptions as of press time.
FURTHER READING
Some junk for sale on Amazon is very literally garbage, report finds
Still, these error-message-filled listings highlight the lack of care or even basic editing many Amazon scammers are exercising when putting their spammy product listings on the Amazon marketplace. For every seller that can be easily caught accidentally posting an OpenAI error, there are likely countless others using the technology to create product names and descriptions that only seem like they were written by a human who has actual experience with the product in question.
Enlarge / A set of clearly real people conversing on Twitter / X.
Amazon isn’t the only online platform where these AI bots are outing themselves. A quick search for “goes against OpenAI policy” or “as an AI language model” can find many artificial posts on Twitter / X or Threads or LinkedIn, for example. Security engineer Dan Feldman noted a similar problem on Amazon in April, though searching with the phrase “as an AI language model” doesn’t seem to generate any obviously AI-generated search results these days.
FURTHER READING
AI-generated books force Amazon to cap e-book publications to 3 per day
As fun as it is to call out these obvious mishaps for AI-generated content mills, a flood of harder-to-detect AI content is threatening to overwhelm everyone from art communities to sci-fi magazines to Amazon’s ebook marketplace. Pretty much any platform that accepts user submissions that involve text or visual art now has to worry about being flooded with wave after wave of AI-generated work trying to crowd out the human community they were created for. It’s a problem that’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
Listing image by Getty Images | Leon Neal
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AI is as intelligent as the people who programmed it. Given that AI jobs are some of the highest paying jobs right now, they attract the best talent.
Most people are pretty dumb (and looking around NSFE, this includes most sellers). So it’s not really a surprise that AI >>> people.
Amazon’s Editorial Team has always struck me as rather ineffective in the performance of its duties, to be sure, but methinks its denizens have deployed LLM for the recent re-writing of the SHC (“Seller Help Content”) page Shipping and routing requirements (link, Seller Central), resulting yet again in conflicting information in that page’s ‘Box dimensions’ & ‘Box weight’ ¶'s:
I’ve been monitoring that page since 31May2017, and have only seen relatively- minimal changes (the removal of the formerly available “How To Pack” video back in November of 2019, the addition of the Huawei Listed Entity disclaimer, etc.) in all that time.
I guess the rules depend on whether you have your scale set to “kg” or “lbs”
Ain’t Amazon’s Global Expansion Initiative dandy?
There’s a significant difference between 15 kilograms and 50 pounds.
Seconded.
You’ll get no argument from this seller over on the NSFE (among others), either:
This is the PDP in question (broken for Discourse):
https: //www.amazon.com/Generic-woman-gift-set/dp/B0C71XXYS6
Any guesses as to which item in the set flagged the ASIN as a food product?
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In the description
This is a super cool gifts box for women that coffee lover will appreciate. It is a good gifting choice for Birthday, Valentines day, Employee appreciation gifts, Nurses gifts, Mothers day, Christmas gifts. If you need gift ideas for girlfriend, wife, sister, mother, friend, this gift box for women make perfect sense. THIS PINK BOX FOR WOMEN CONTAINS: 1x12 oz coffee Tumbler, 1x Straw, 1x Straw Cleaner, 1x3.5 oz Flavor Candle, 1x Pair of Cupcake Socks, 1x4 oz Donut Bath Bomb, 1x3.5 oz Bath Salt, 1x Canvas Cosmetic Bag, 1x Sleeping Mask, 1x Gift Box, 1x Greeting Card&Gift Tag. Self Care Gifts for Women, Best Gifts for Her, Unique Gifts are PERFECT GIFTS for her.
AI sees a coffee flavor cupcake donut with salt …
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At the time, I thought that the height of ridiculousness was in Q3 2016 when the Lighting Facts Compliance Amabot began shuttering apparel items which had the temerity to sport an image of a lit Christmas Tree.
Boy, was I naive!
Weren’t we all. That’s a prerequisite for opening an Amazon seller account.
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What a garbage detail page.
Title is terrible, and the description is way way too long especially considering that it’s in broken english. If you’re not gonna get a native english speaker to write the description, then shorter is better.
They also misrepresented their product dimensions/weight to FBA (and it hasn’t been cubiscanned yet) so they have a big fee hike surprise coming when it does get scanned
Unless this gift set is for a dwarf woman, I do not think those dimensions and weight can possibly be accurate
I also have no idea how much inventory they sent in (as they limited it to 10 per customer) but if it’s a large quantity for something that’s unlikely to sell they’re going to get hit with tons of fees. This seller has a lot more things to worry about than the product being flagged as non-returnable.
it has worked great for listing descriptions (for me), HOWEVER, if you have similar items it will come up with almost identical results. At least that’s what I have found. But that is using the same AI generator. I guess, like with people, if you want different results you have to use different AI generators.
I wonder how Rufus will do for the Buyer Community?
So AI algorithms decide how to list it. Then AI decides how to rank it in searches. Then AI does the searching for the consumer to find what they want?
wtf?
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#IdiocracyISComing - and Amazon wants in on the ground floor (where they’ve long had a toehold).
Ya … but the really hard part is convincing the wife that my name is AI and that I’m right.
