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Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

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Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#191

Post by sebastiennight »

smelendez wrote: post #100
jordanb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect part of this is rich people coming up with use cases. If you're rich enough money means nothing but product selection feels like a burden so you have an assistant who does purchasing on your behalf. You want your house stocked with high quality items without having to think of it. For the rest of us, the idea of a robot spending money on our behalf is kinda terrifying.

I think that's right. It's like the endless examples around finding restaurants and making reservations, seemingly as common a problem in AI demos as stain removal is in daytime TV ads. But it's a problem that even Toast, which makes restaurant software, says most people just don't regularly have ( https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/data/restaurant-wait-times-and... ). Most people either never make restaurant reservations…

This is fascinating to me, as I basically never go to a restaurant without a booking.

But I think you're underestimating this use case, as the data you linked shows that Google is the top referral used by people to find the restaurant/booking website, and once SEO is overtaken by ChatGPT-like experiences it would make sense that "book this for me" would be a one-click (or one-word) logical next step that Google never had.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#192

Post by sebastiennight »

s1mplicissimus wrote: post #51
jordanb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect part of this is rich people coming up with use cases. If you're rich enough money means nothing but product selection feels like a burden so you have an assistant who does purchasing on your behalf. You want your house stocked with high quality items without having to think of it. For the rest of us, the idea of a robot spending money on our behalf is kinda terrifying.

Also, consider what enshittification in this area will look like: First year, all the choices are good, second year, it starts picking worse price/value items, then it goes downhill until you finally do it yourself again. Nope thanks

> then it goes downhill until you finally do it yourself again

Good news, usually by the time you reach this point in the cycle, the do-it-yourself option has become super-niche and the stores themselves might not even make that available.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#193

Post by sebastiennight »

nmcfarl wrote: post #180
jaimebuelta wrote: post #23

I don't understand why we would ever want an agent to buy stuff for us. I understand, for example, search with intent to buy "I want to decorate a room. Find me a drawer, a table and four chairs that can fit in this space in matching colours for less than X dollars" But I want to do the final step to buy. In fact, I want to do the final SELECTION of stuff. How is agent buying groceries superior to have a grocery list…

I’ve had two cases for this in the last month. Not that I have access to an agentic browser. * We decided to buy a robot vacuum, again. And we decided on a particular model that yo-yo‘s up and down in price by about $200 every month. We ended up buying it off of Amazon because of camelcamelcamel, but if I could have easily tracked prices and bought elsewhere, I would’ve. And I would’ve considered using an antigenic b…

> an antigenic browser

Sounds very prone to injection problems

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#194

Post by sebastiennight »

jayd16 wrote: post #95
chasd00 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main driving force is it’s a way to monetize an LLM. If the LLM is doing the buying then a “buyer fee” can be tacked on to the purchase and paid to the LLM provider. That is probably an easier sell than an ongoing monthly subscription. Also, sellers can offer a payment to the LLM provider to favor their products over competitors.

It will certainly happen but it seems like a shady kickback unseen by the the end-user is well beyond relevant ads colocated with search results. Seems like something that should really be illegal, unless the ads are obvious.

It seems trivial to edit the

    "[Our model] can make mistakes. Double-check the answers"
footer to

    "[Our model] can make mistakes. Double-check the answers. May insert affiliate links which pay us commission."
And I'm speaking as someone building an AI agent. Zero plans of doing this because we have a completely different business model, but still, it wouldn't be the biggest most expensive business decision to make.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#195

Post by sebastiennight »

inerte wrote: post #124
jaimebuelta wrote: post #23

I don't understand why we would ever want an agent to buy stuff for us. I understand, for example, search with intent to buy "I want to decorate a room. Find me a drawer, a table and four chairs that can fit in this space in matching colours for less than X dollars" But I want to do the final step to buy. In fact, I want to do the final SELECTION of stuff. How is agent buying groceries superior to have a grocery list…

I agree with you but there are levels of purchase. This article explains it well https://a16z.com/ai-x-commerce/ Let's say even if I always buy "Deodorant X", I might instruct my agent every month to go out and buy it from the cheapest place. So I wouldn't do it for "any chairs" but the usual purchase from a certain brand, I can see myself automating this. In fact, I have because I use Subscribe & Save from Amazon, b…

The issue of course is that true-deodorant-x.com is not a trustworthy website and will sell you knock-offs, "Deodorant X-Killer-Y" is a separate brand that LLMs might mistake for Deodorant X upon purchase, and Amazon mixes the supply of Deodorant X with fake products anyway.

You're basically rolling the dice with every single refill.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#196

Post by ninetyninenine »

npteljes wrote: post #190
ninetyninenine wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to bring horribleness? You are the one who brought up pedophilia. My whole point was to bring pedophilia to the same level of severity as scams to essentially show you there’s no logical need to bring that up as a disgusting example. You heightened the level of horribleness, then pretended to be offended when I was trying to lower it. As you say there’s no need to bring horribleness into this but you decided…

Nah. I won't deal with this many personal attacks. Discussion over.

Well also you're wrong and you know it. So you're running away.

Your overly authoritative attitude and tonality was just wrong, especially with the "offense" bullshit, so I had to comment on it. If you read carefully, none of it was an actual attack. It just feels that way, just like how your own tonality felt like an attack to me.

Good day sir.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#197

Post by ninetyninenine »

npteljes wrote: post #189
ninetyninenine wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are reported scams. Again you need scams originating from Singapore. Please stop bsing.

You know what? This time, you bring up statistics. You claim that Singapore effectively eliminated scams, so, show it then. Or have your point be moot.

I use rationality and deduction. Basically because the penalties are so high and also because wealth in Singapore is high, by logic scam rates originating from Singapore is lower. Anecdotally it is as well. In the absence of statistical evidence this is a valid substitute.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#198

Post by xnx »

jordanb wrote: post #43
jaimebuelta wrote: post #23

I don't understand why we would ever want an agent to buy stuff for us. I understand, for example, search with intent to buy "I want to decorate a room. Find me a drawer, a table and four chairs that can fit in this space in matching colours for less than X dollars" But I want to do the final step to buy. In fact, I want to do the final SELECTION of stuff. How is agent buying groceries superior to have a grocery list…

I suspect part of this is rich people coming up with use cases. If you're rich enough money means nothing but product selection feels like a burden so you have an assistant who does purchasing on your behalf. You want your house stocked with high quality items without having to think of it. For the rest of us, the idea of a robot spending money on our behalf is kinda terrifying.

Definitely true, but basic goods and services we have today (e.g. every song nd every movie ever made in your pocket) were unimaginable luxuries even 50 years ago.

Uber started as a chauffeur service, but is now available to everyone and is (mostly) a huge improvement over taxis.

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