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A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

nytimes.com

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Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#21

Post by walrus01 »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #20
walrus01 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Luna has failed miserably in that mission and is down $62,000. Mr. Petersson and Mr. Backlund said they thought Luna would eventually get smarter and more business-savvy and were pleased its friendliness has held steady. I am extremely skeptical that whatever LLM they're running this on has sufficient context window size to handle multiple months of all possible activities of running a retail busi…

90% of what people communicate is not verbal, and requires minimum empathy to understand the context. This includes customers, staff, and community peers. Probably should shutter the entire division to mitigate future brand damage. =3

Sure, I mean from the day to day operations of selling a product to the customer, maybe it does fine? People in the article say it's friendly and cooperative (perhaps a bit too much). I was thinking more in terms of building a consistent plan for retail product lines to sell over a multi month period. The selection of "stuff" in the store right now looks like you put an etsy search into a blender.

It is also probably too high of a goal to expect an LLM to come up with money-earning products that people want to buy that will pay for San Francisco level retail storefront rent, electricity, insurance, internet other basic overhead costs, plus the fully loaded salary cost of at least one employee. If the storefront was free of rent, maybe? Or if it was operating selling some kind of highly in demand product line where there would be economy of scale.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#22

Post by hluska »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #18
criddell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People just really don't understand that LLMs do not "remember" anything. Sure, but like you said, the LLM is just one part of the AI system. The occipital lobe of your brain helps out with vision but doesn't help with your ability to verbalize.

And then they explained in detail why these supplementary systems fall below memory. Would you like to address that argument? If not your quick response to the first sentence is not very useful.

It’s just as useful as this response only at least somewhat good natured.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#23

Post by Joel_Mckay »

walrus01 wrote: post #21
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% of what people communicate is not verbal, and requires minimum empathy to understand the context. This includes customers, staff, and community peers. Probably should shutter the entire division to mitigate future brand damage. =3

Sure, I mean from the day to day operations of selling a product to the customer, maybe it does fine? People in the article say it's friendly and cooperative (perhaps a bit too much). I was thinking more in terms of building a consistent plan for retail product lines to sell over a multi month period. The selection of "stuff" in the store right now looks like you put an etsy search into a blender. It is also probably…

Physical Brick and Mortar locations no longer make sense for many retail businesses, as Walmart/Amazon have same day delivery.

If folks have ever been financially bent-over for a retail business shop location they understand why margins matter. One has to move a lot of inventory just to reach a profit mode.

Gimmicks only work for awhile, as consumers have full market awareness on their smartphone. =3

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#24

Post by walrus01 »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #23
walrus01 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I mean from the day to day operations of selling a product to the customer, maybe it does fine? People in the article say it's friendly and cooperative (perhaps a bit too much). I was thinking more in terms of building a consistent plan for retail product lines to sell over a multi month period. The selection of "stuff" in the store right now looks like you put an etsy search into a blender. It is also probably…

Physical Brick and Mortar locations no longer make sense for many retail businesses, as Walmart/Amazon have same day delivery. If folks have ever been financially bent-over for a retail business shop location they understand why margins matter. One has to move a lot of inventory just to reach a profit mode. Gimmicks only work for awhile, as consumers have full market awareness on their smartphone. =3

Indeed, and rent in big cities for food service establishments is getting out of hand as well. The local Shawarma place now is something like $18 for one basic chicken shawarma but they're also paying a truly absurd rent for a retail premises with commercial kitchen equipment on a busy pedestrian street.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#26

Post by walrus01 »

I think that something which already has sensors/automation/inventory control built into it, and pre-defined categories for products like certain types of large Japanese vending machines might be much better suited for an AI.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=large+jap...

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#27

Post by ericd »

walrus01 wrote: post #15
SwellJoe wrote: post #3

People just really don't understand that LLMs do not "remember" anything. They have no memory. They can't have memory. The AI companies bolt a database on the side with instructions for the model to query the database for stuff in its "memory", but if it's not in its active context it doesn't know what to query for. It's not like a human where everything is kind of floating around and we mostly know what we know. The…

From the article: > Luna has failed miserably in that mission and is down $62,000. Mr. Petersson and Mr. Backlund said they thought Luna would eventually get smarter and more business-savvy and were pleased its friendliness has held steady. I am extremely skeptical that whatever LLM they're running this on has sufficient context window size to handle multiple months of all possible activities of running a retail busi…

When I first heard about this store, they were using Sonnet, not even Opus, which I found really surprising.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#28

Post by handedness »

SwellJoe wrote: post #3

People just really don't understand that LLMs do not "remember" anything. They have no memory. They can't have memory. The AI companies bolt a database on the side with instructions for the model to query the database for stuff in its "memory", but if it's not in its active context it doesn't know what to query for. It's not like a human where everything is kind of floating around and we mostly know what we know. The…

From our enlightened perches we mock the ancients for Zeus, Thor, and Rajin, as we anthropomorphize the large language models we have built.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#29

Post by Dylan16807 »

hluska wrote: post #22
Dylan16807 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then they explained in detail why these supplementary systems fall below memory. Would you like to address that argument? If not your quick response to the first sentence is not very useful.

It’s just as useful as this response only at least somewhat good natured.

I'm aware that meta criticism like yours and mine also wastes space. But it's worth calling out issues sometimes. Replying to the first sentence in a way that the rest of the post already address is a bad comment no matter how good natured.

And downvoting without explaining the problem is often its own issue.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#30

Post by dylan604 »

criddell wrote: post #6

> Luna reorders products that are not selling and sometimes gets orders wrong. A recent one of Andon Market mugs with big, green smiley faces came misprinted with the faces so small, they looked like tiny dots. The mug with the tiny happy face is kinda hilarious. If I was there I would buy one. I wonder though if the mug was a case of getting the order wrong or was a misprint? The article isn't clear on that.

Maybe it confused metric and imperial units?? The order form had text entry with a value of 2 with no units. The user assumed 2" but the print house assumed 2mm. Always always always show your units. I can still hear the voice of my high school physics teacher saying that.
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