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Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
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Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#2"Collaborative filtering", "using past activity and stated preferences to guide us"
I can't think of areas Amazon does worse in today than these two areas.
Reviews are so untrustworthy they are just noise.
Those coffee beans I ordered a month ago? I have to go back to my orders page, search (and for some reason their search is dirt slow) - then wade through unrelated products to finally find them.
But oh, hey, you just bought a vacuum cleaner? I know what you would really like! MORE VACUUMS!
I guess they innovated on those two areas in 1998, and then since then the only thing they did was remove the `review-count-rank` sorting option so their AI can suggest Amazon Brand products.
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#3"Collaborative filtering", "using past activity and stated preferences to guide us" I can't think of areas Amazon does worse in today than these two areas. Reviews are so untrustworthy they are just noise. Those coffee beans I ordered a month ago? I have to go back to my orders page, search (and for some reason their search is dirt slow) - then wade through unrelated products to finally find them. But oh, hey, you ju…
hey, you just bought a vacuum cleaner? I know what you would really like! MORE VACUUMS!
This is a common refrain, but I would be amazed if it weren't backed up by data and I anecdotally fit into the mold. If I buy a product that I really like, then I'm likely to buy it again to give as a gift to friends. If I buy something like a a vacuum and I don't like it, then I'm likely to buy a different model that better fits my needs. It seems silly when you aren't interested in buying another one of whatever item you bought, but there are multiple legitimate reasons that people would want to.
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#4[deleted]
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#5The common sentiment around AI in the 90s and early 2000s was that it didn't work; it had its hype, it had its heyday, but it seemed like a dead-end for the most part. The Perceptron was merely a linear function approximator. And the Multi-layer Perceptron was a little more capable, but the many orders of magnitude it would have to scale up in order to be convincing just wasn't feasible back then (it finally was in the 2010s).
Simple statistical models that aren't "AI" so much as just generic ML were and are quite useful: like recommendation and newsfeed engines ("the Algorithm" as we call it so often today). Love 'em or hate 'em, they can be quite good at predicting interest/engagement.
The resurgence in deep learning in the 2010s has shown us new magic tricks, but they're still just that: parlor tricks. At least they're more convincing tricks than what we had 40 years ago!
That's what ultimately depresses me about AI. It's still just a parlor trick. We haven't actually taught computers to think, to reason, to be innovative. Deep learning is definitely having its day, but I suppose this too will pass unless we can unlock certain ways to make AI reliable and responsible. Or... to just start understanding it in general.
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#6The common sentiment around AI in the 90s and early 2000s was that it didn't work; it had its hype, it had its heyday, but it seemed like a dead-end for the most part. The Perceptron was merely a linear function approximator. And the Multi-layer Perceptron was a little more capable, but the many orders of magnitude it would have to scale up in order to be convincing just wasn't feasible back then (it finally was in t…
I hate this sentiment. We might learn that human thought and reasoning are parlor tricks too once we understand them better. Anything we start to understand loses its mystery
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#7"Collaborative filtering", "using past activity and stated preferences to guide us" I can't think of areas Amazon does worse in today than these two areas. Reviews are so untrustworthy they are just noise. Those coffee beans I ordered a month ago? I have to go back to my orders page, search (and for some reason their search is dirt slow) - then wade through unrelated products to finally find them. But oh, hey, you ju…
hey, you just bought a vacuum cleaner? I know what you would really like! MORE VACUUMS! This is a common refrain, but I would be amazed if it weren't backed up by data and I anecdotally fit into the mold. If I buy a product that I really like, then I'm likely to buy it again to give as a gift to friends. If I buy something like a a vacuum and I don't like it, then I'm likely to buy a different model that better fits…
You'd buy a vacuum cleaner as a gift for a friend? I find that incredibly hard to believe but if it's true, it's very strange behaviour.
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#8"Collaborative filtering", "using past activity and stated preferences to guide us" I can't think of areas Amazon does worse in today than these two areas. Reviews are so untrustworthy they are just noise. Those coffee beans I ordered a month ago? I have to go back to my orders page, search (and for some reason their search is dirt slow) - then wade through unrelated products to finally find them. But oh, hey, you ju…
> But oh, hey, you just bought a vacuum cleaner? I know what you would really like! MORE VACUUMS!
Amazon did literally this to me just a couple days ago.
I'd bought a vacuum cleaner on Amazon a week earlier, and, when doing an Amazon checkout of a cart with one item, it threw up a list of consumable items that I'd bought in the past, to possibly add to the order... including another one of those $120 upright vacuum cleaners.
(Maybe they have data that says this makes them more money, even though I'd guess it might hurt customer confidence in the site.)
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
hey, you just bought a vacuum cleaner? I know what you would really like! MORE VACUUMS! This is a common refrain, but I would be amazed if it weren't backed up by data and I anecdotally fit into the mold. If I buy a product that I really like, then I'm likely to buy it again to give as a gift to friends. If I buy something like a a vacuum and I don't like it, then I'm likely to buy a different model that better fits…
You'd buy a vacuum cleaner as a gift for a friend? I find that incredibly hard to believe but if it's true, it's very strange behaviour.
It truly is a gift that sucks
Re: Jeff Bezos on AI (1998) [video]
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
hey, you just bought a vacuum cleaner? I know what you would really like! MORE VACUUMS! This is a common refrain, but I would be amazed if it weren't backed up by data and I anecdotally fit into the mold. If I buy a product that I really like, then I'm likely to buy it again to give as a gift to friends. If I buy something like a a vacuum and I don't like it, then I'm likely to buy a different model that better fits…
You'd buy a vacuum cleaner as a gift for a friend? I find that incredibly hard to believe but if it's true, it's very strange behaviour.
I did, not a month ago. Nothing strange about the process whatsoever.