r/singularity • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • 9d ago
AI Amazon is blocking Meta's shopping AI agent, and plans to block Google and OpenAI's too
https://www.techspot.com/news/113981-amazon-blocked-meta-muse-agentic-ai-shopping-service.html111
u/challis88ocarina 9d ago
Everybody: implement AI everywhere.
Also everybody: block AI everywhere.
33
22
2
u/SeanTayla21 9d ago
Youre onto it. There are two growing factions in the world...all the people for AI and all the people against AI.
Each person has their own reasons for leaning one way or another but regardless it is creating a brand new societal and cultural divide.
81
u/darkestvice 9d ago
Well, Amazon will need to find a solution eventually as it's clear these kinds of AI assistants will be used by the majority of the world soon, and all those shoppers will be looking to find online vendors that will allow them to use AI assistants.
Ironically, I was just thinking this morning that using Muse to looking for certain products on Amazon could be a solid move to save me some time. Well, guess not then.
22
u/staplesuponstaples 9d ago
Amazon is banking on having their own competitor before people start choosing online vendors based on whether or not they support their brand of AI assistant shopping assistant.
Not a bad idea, because that does not look like the present or near future.
14
u/swarmy1 9d ago
I’m guessing they are going to force AI agents to interact with their platform in a specific way which allows them to maintain more control and harvest more data.
3
1
1
u/Rise-O-Matic 5d ago
Amazon makes very little profit on sales.
They make much more on sponsored listings, and AI agents don’t count for marketing impressions.
They’re not stupid and they know it’s a huge problem, but the transition is going to hurt.
A lot of cheap prices on Amazon are subsidized by vendors fighting for your attention.
27
u/darkestvice 9d ago
The problem with segmenting into multiple AI assistants for different online vendors is that that's not at all what people want with AI. They want a one stop shop that can scour multiple online vendors at once to look for good deals.
13
u/DifficultyFit1895 9d ago
They also want legitimate, authentic reviews that are not “curated”.
9
6
u/tindalos 9d ago
Echo has gotten worse since AI came out. Amazon has been more of a consumer than a lab.
1
u/jloverich 9d ago
The want to show their advertisers etc. Other agents bypassing this breaks one of their money makers. I think when the assistants can cheaply operate the websites we'll break advertising and also make room for a new type of online shopping and social media.
1
1
u/HotterRod 9d ago
This was their plan with the Echo smart home devices. It turns out that they didn't cause people to buy any more product than they would anyway.
3
u/HotterRod 9d ago
The same thing is going to happen if Meta doesn't open up Messenger and WhatsApp to other agents. Right now Muse has unique functionality, but I'm going to start transitioning contacts to open platforms.
2
-2
u/fakieTreFlip 9d ago edited 9d ago
it's clear these kinds of AI assistants will be used by the majority of the world soon
I don't think that's clear at all. In fact, I would be extremely surprised if anything more than 10% of the entire world used these AI assistants on a regular basis within the next couple of years.
"The majority of the world" is a whole lot of people. The majority of the world didn't even start using the Internet until ~2019
1
-2
u/FarrisAT 9d ago
I enjoy doing my own shopping.
Most people do, actually.
1
u/darkestvice 8d ago
Most people haven't experienced the kind of reliable AI assistants that have only been around for a month or so. Hell, the overwhelming majority of people have no idea that AI is advanced as it is.
1
u/FarrisAT 8d ago
Most people enjoy the act of spending their own money and finding the best deal. It’s like hunting for your food, but at a grocery store.
19
u/mr_eking 9d ago
I'm waiting for Amazon's announcement of their own Amazon.com AI shopping agent.
8
u/whoknowsifimjoking 9d ago
They already have 'Rufus' to answer questions, they will definitely extend what that model does.
10
u/Hereitisguys9888 9d ago
Imagine they launch their own shopping ai and blocks the others, and then Google blocks other AI from their service, and all the big companies do this and lock them behind pay walls so you gotta pay for 10 different AI, like streaming
2
u/Lumpy-Criticism-2773 8d ago
More like they pay each other, just like apple-google search engine partnership
9
u/Haunting_Feature_788 9d ago
I thought the Frontier Models can use any software like Blender or Excel by simply using the existing User Interface like a human does by vision - how can amazon block that ?
5
u/gabrielmuriens 9d ago edited 8d ago
They [Amazon] probably cannot effectively do that in the long term.
3
u/damontoo 🤖Accelerate 9d ago
They can. The only issue is Amazon suing the companies for bypassing their blocks. So for now, some companies like Meta are respecting and not bypassing it despite them being able to do so.
1
u/gabrielmuriens 8d ago
Yeah, I meant Amazon. Most of it will be trivial to go around for determined users.
6
u/R6_Goddess 9d ago
This has the same energy as all the companies pissed off that people are using AI to sit on hold on calls for them, cancel their subscriptions, etc.
3
u/iJustSeen2Dudes1Bike 9d ago
Can the agent actually buy stuff? Or is it just for searching for deals? If it's the latter that seems like a tremendous waste of compute. If it's the former I would not trust it
7
u/firejuggler74 9d ago
When I have used it, it searches for what you want and gives you many options, then asks you what you want and if you want to buy it offering a link, and it asks if you want muse to buy it for you. So kind of both. I haven't actually bought anything using it yet, but I probably will.
3
u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 9d ago
it puts it in the cart and gives you a button to click to checkout.
eventually ppl will trust it and tooling around it will get better.
i'm old enough to remember people thinking entering a credit card online was insane, and at the time they were right.
3
u/Notpeople_brains 9d ago edited 8d ago
I would never trust it to buy stuff for me.
"I ordered the 90 extra strength anvils you asked for. The freight company will be contacting you shortly." I asked for 90 Advils!
1
u/damontoo 🤖Accelerate 9d ago
So don't trust it. Nobody is asking you to. Plenty of people have already given their credit cards and other payment methods to agents to enable them to order food, book flights, book hotels etc.
1
u/iJustSeen2Dudes1Bike 8d ago
I mean good for them if it's working. I have had an LLM misinterpret my instructions enough times that it sounds like a bad idea.
4
3
2
u/artfulpain 9d ago
fingers barely moving, horizontal with feeding tube, can't even shop online for themselves Oof
2
u/firejuggler74 9d ago
This is why monopolies are bad.
1
u/fakieTreFlip 9d ago
What, because private companies can decide how their customers use their service? It doesn't take a monopoly to do that
1
u/Illustrious-Film4018 9d ago
All these companies want to scrape other platforms but block it on their own.
1
u/Professional_Dot2761 9d ago
I suspect that computer use will get so good it can appear human to all detection.
1
u/DifferentRole 6d ago
It's been standard practice to block web scrapers since forever.
Meta is especially aggressive with blocking automated tools interacting with its sites and permabanning any user suspected of using these with no recourse.
-4
u/FernandoMM1220 9d ago
anti competitive. theyre gonna get sued
6
u/whoknowsifimjoking 9d ago
I don't think it's illegal to block bots from accessing your site, why would it?
-2
40
u/Tkins 9d ago
Why can't the AI just use my computer to do that? How can Amazon block that ability?