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My terse answer to, 'Why not use AI to shop for [X]' is that if you are letting AI do the shopping for you at any level, you aren't actually distinguishing prod

My terse answer to, 'Why not use AI to shop for [X]' is that if you are letting AI do the shopping for you at any level, you aren't actually distinguishing products by features or quality or it's ability to solve a problem. You are being fed junk that is likely paid to be moved to the top of the list. It's probably a nice feeling when you can put in a list of soft requirements to ChatGPT et al and get a list of things it recommends, but I would suggest you are a fool if you think those listings aren't bought and paid for. In an era where the gap between a 'good product' and a 'bad product' is growing ever larger and the price is not an indicator of anything, the onus to actually become knowledgeable re: "How to identify products worth buying" is becoming greater and greater. If you are using AI to do the shopping for you, not only are you not building that muscle, you are actively weakening it as a chatbot convincingly recommends something to you based on unverifiable platitudes about 'quality' and 'value' - a recommendation that was, again, bought and paid for. So yeah, that's gross and I would argue pretty strongly that it's just as brain rot adjacent as something like Tiktok. Like Tiktok though, I expect it will see at least some level of popular use, and also like Tiktok, I think it'll end up making the population dumber on average.

tantalor 5mo ago
> being fed junk As if the products you find in mass market brick'n'mortar stores are any different.
- freetime2 5mo ago
  Or the information I would be fed if I walked into a car dealership and asked a dealer. Unbiased information has never been a thing, and while AI introduces a set of tools along with a new set of risks, it doesn't really change the fundamental problem of needing to vet your information against trusted sources.
- Kadecgos 5mo ago
  They on average, are. That's kind of my point. Yes, if you engage with the 'designed marketing channels' for products, you will end up with junk. If you want to have stuff that isn't junk, you need to do some leg work. A chatbot will not do that for you.
freetime2 5mo ago
> I would suggest you are a fool if you think those listings aren't bought and paid for. At no point in the process did ChatGPT direct me to any listings. I fed it my criteria, and it gave back a text response listing car models that met my criteria. The only links it included were links to reddit posts and other car reviews. And the results were useful to me because they pointed out where my own pre-existing biases had caused me to overlook one model that I probably should have paid more attention to. What you are suggesting feels more like a potential future threat than my actual experience thus far. I found the listings by conducting a separate search on a used car listing website - and the number of matches that met my criteria were small enough that I was basically able to look exhaustively through all the matches. But shopping for used cars can be a little confusing at times because there are a lot of different configurations that change every year. Sometimes the listing might just say something like "2022 Touring, Safety Package" and include a bunch of photos - and identifying whether a given listing has a particular feature you are looking for requires some investigation (ideally they would include a full list of options, but often times they don't). Or often times the listing itself might contain incorrect information. And I found ChatGPT to be a useful tool for quickly making sense of the various configurations, and of course conduct my own sanity checks to be sure the information is not hallucinated. I'm not suggesting you should solely rely on AI for shopping (although in some cases for low-risk purchases it may be fine) - but rather as an additional tool to aid in research and decision making.
- Kadecgos 5mo ago
  > What you are suggesting feels more like a potential future threat than my actual experience thus far. Do we really have to litigate this? Have you been on the Internet at all in the last 2 decades? Do you seriously think that even if that kind of advertising vector isn't being paid for today, it won't be tomorrow? It is almost childishly naive to assume that these companies that are bleeding billions will have the ethical fortitude to say 'no' to Chevy / Ford / Jeep / Whoever when they offer them a check to make sure Toyota and Honda are unceremoniously just de-prioritized as recommendations. --- Beyond that, the issue is still that you are not going to get complete market coverage. It's feasible that you might on certain smaller market segments (Cars, for example), but something with much more producers and products in the segment has no chance. You would be better off spending the time to understand the market, what differentiates the products in it, and how to think about the parameters involved - all things that are being just abstracted away by asking a Chatbot for a list of requirements.
c16 5mo ago
I can very clearly imagine it always going for branded products where brand is not required, unless specifically prompted not to, which the average person won't do. > I need dishwasher tablets Could mean buy a 30 pack for £25 which have all the marketing buzz surrounding them, or buy the own brand 45 pack for £5 which does the job just as well.

tantalor 5mo ago

> being fed junk As if the products you find in mass market brick'n'mortar stores are any different.

freetime2 5mo ago
Or the information I would be fed if I walked into a car dealership and asked a dealer. Unbiased information has never been a thing, and while AI introduces a set of tools along with a new set of risks, it doesn't really change the fundamental problem of needing to vet your information against trusted sources.
Kadecgos 5mo ago
They on average, are. That's kind of my point. Yes, if you engage with the 'designed marketing channels' for products, you will end up with junk. If you want to have stuff that isn't junk, you need to do some leg work. A chatbot will not do that for you.

freetime2 5mo ago

> I would suggest you are a fool if you think those listings aren't bought and paid for. At no point in the process did ChatGPT direct me to any listings. I fed it my criteria, and it gave back a text response listing car models that met my criteria. The only links it included were links to reddit posts and other car reviews. And the results were useful to me because they pointed out where my own pre-existing biases had caused me to overlook one model that I probably should have paid more attention to. What you are suggesting feels more like a potential future threat than my actual experience thus far. I found the listings by conducting a separate search on a used car listing website - and the number of matches that met my criteria were small enough that I was basically able to look exhaustively through all the matches. But shopping for used cars can be a little confusing at times because there are a lot of different configurations that change every year. Sometimes the listing might just say something like "2022 Touring, Safety Package" and include a bunch of photos - and identifying whether a given listing has a particular feature you are looking for requires some investigation (ideally they would include a full list of options, but often times they don't). Or often times the listing itself might contain incorrect information. And I found ChatGPT to be a useful tool for quickly making sense of the various configurations, and of course conduct my own sanity checks to be sure the information is not hallucinated. I'm not suggesting you should solely rely on AI for shopping (although in some cases for low-risk purchases it may be fine) - but rather as an additional tool to aid in research and decision making.

Kadecgos 5mo ago
> What you are suggesting feels more like a potential future threat than my actual experience thus far. Do we really have to litigate this? Have you been on the Internet at all in the last 2 decades? Do you seriously think that even if that kind of advertising vector isn't being paid for today, it won't be tomorrow? It is almost childishly naive to assume that these companies that are bleeding billions will have the ethical fortitude to say 'no' to Chevy / Ford / Jeep / Whoever when they offer them a check to make sure Toyota and Honda are unceremoniously just de-prioritized as recommendations. --- Beyond that, the issue is still that you are not going to get complete market coverage. It's feasible that you might on certain smaller market segments (Cars, for example), but something with much more producers and products in the segment has no chance. You would be better off spending the time to understand the market, what differentiates the products in it, and how to think about the parameters involved - all things that are being just abstracted away by asking a Chatbot for a list of requirements.

c16 5mo ago

I can very clearly imagine it always going for branded products where brand is not required, unless specifically prompted not to, which the average person won't do. > I need dishwasher tablets Could mean buy a 30 pack for £25 which have all the marketing buzz surrounding them, or buy the own brand 45 pack for £5 which does the job just as well.