Can the Bezos Bulldozer Crush Temu, Shein, Regulators, and AI?
June 27, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The question, to be fair, should be, “Can the Bezos-less bulldozer crush Temu, Shein, Regulators, Subscriptions to Alexa, and AI?” The article, which appeared in the “real” news online service Venture Beat, presents an argument suggesting that the answer is, “Yes! Absolutely.”
Thanks MSFT Copilot. Good bulldozer.
The write up “AWS AI Takeover: 5 Cloud-Winning Plays They’re [sic] Using to Dominate the Market” depends upon an Amazon Big Dog named Matt Wood, VP of AI products at AWS. The article strikes me as something drafted by a small group at Amazon and then polished to PR perfection. The reasons the bulldozer will crush Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard’s on-premises play, and the keep-on-searching IBM Watson, among others, are:
- Covering the numbers or logo of the AI companies in the “game”; for example, Anthropic, AI21 Labs, and other whale players
- Hitting up its partners, customers, and friends to get support for the Amazon AI wonderfulness
- Engineering AI to be itty bitty pieces one can use to build a giant AI solution capable of dominating D&B industry sectors like banking, energy, commodities, and any other multi-billion sector one cares to name
- Skipping the Google folly of dealing with consumers. Amazon wants the really big contracts with really big companies, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations.
- Amazon is just better at security. Those leaky S3 buckets are not Amazon’s problem. The customers failed to use Amazon’s stellar security tools.
Did these five points convince you?
If you did not embrace the spirit of the bulldozer, the Venture Beat article states:
Make no mistake, fellow nerds. AWS is playing a long game here. They’re not interested in winning the next AI benchmark or topping the leaderboard in the latest Kaggle competition. They’re building the platform that will power the AI applications of tomorrow, and they plan to power all of them. AWS isn’t just building the infrastructure, they’re becoming the operating system for AI itself.
Convinced yet? Well, okay. I am not on the bulldozer yet. I do hear its engine roaring and I smell the no-longer-green emissions from the bulldozer’s data centers. Also, I am not sure the Google, IBM, and Microsoft are ready to roll over and let the bulldozer crush them into the former rain forest’s red soil. I recall researching Sagemaker which had some AI-type jargon applied to that “smart” service. Ah, you don’t know Sagemaker? Yeah. Too bad.
The rather positive leaning Amazon write up points out that as nifty as those five points about Amazon’s supremacy in the AI jungle, the company has vision. Okay, it is not the customer first idea from 1998 or so. But it is interesting. Amazon will have infrastructure. Amazon will provide model access. (I want to ask, “For how long?” but I won’t.), and Amazon will have app development.
The article includes a table providing detail about these three legs of the stool in the bulldozer’s cabin. There is also a run down of Amazon’s recent media and prospect directed announcements. Too bad the article does not include hyperlinks to these documents. Oh, well.
And after about 3,300 words about Amazon, the article includes about 260 words about Microsoft and Google. That’s a good balance. Too bad IBM. You did not make the cut. And HP? Nope. You did not get an “Also participated” certificate.
Net net: Quite a document. And no mention of Sagemaker. The Bezos-less bulldozer just smashes forward. Success is in crushing. Keep at it. And that “they” in the Venture Beat article title: Shouldn’t “they” be an “it”?
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2024
What Is That Wapo Wapo Wapo Sound?
June 20, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Do you hear that thumping wapo wapo wapo sound? I do. It reminds me of an old school pickup truck with a flat tire on a hot summer’s day? Yep, wapo wapo wapo. That’s it!
“Jeff Bezos Has Worst Response Ever to Washington Post Turmoil” emitted this sound when I read the essay in New Republic. The newspaper for Washington, DC and its environs is the Post. When I lived in Washington, DC, the newspaper was a must read. Before I trundled off to the cheerful workplace of Halliburton Nuclear and later to the incredibly sensitive and human blue chip consulting firm known affectionately as the Boozer, I would read the WaPo. I had to be prepared. If I were working with a Congress person like Admiral Craig Hosmer, USN Retired, I had to know what Miss Manners had to say that day. A faux pas could be fatal.
The old pickup truck has a problem because one of the tires went wapo wapo wapo and then the truck stopped. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The WaPo is now a Jeff Bezos property. I have forgotten how the financial deal was structured, but he has a home in DC and every person who is in contention as one of the richest men on earth needs a newspaper. The write up explains:
In a memo to the paper’s top personnel on Tuesday, the billionaire technocrat backed the new CEO Will Lewis, a former lieutenant to right-wing media mogul Richard Murdoch, whose controversial appointment at the Post has made waves across the industry in the wake of reporting on his shady journalistic practices.
That’s inspiring for a newspaper: A political angle and “shady journalistic practices.” What happened to that old every day is Day One and the customer is important? I suppose a PR person could trot those out. But the big story seems to be the newspaper is losing readers and money. Don’t people in DC read? Oh, silly question. No, now the up-and-come movers and shakers doom scroll and watch YouTube. The cited article includes a snippet from the Bezos bulldozer it appears. That item states:
…the journalistic standards and ethics at The Post will not change… You have my full commitment to n maintaining the quality, ethics, and standards we all believe in.
Two ethics in one short item. Will those add up this way: ethics plus ethics equals trust? Sure. I believe everything one of the richest people in the world says. It seems that one of the new hires to drive the newspaper world’s version of Jack Benny’s wheezing Maxwell was involved in some hanky-panky from private telephone conversations.
Several observations:
- “Real” newspapers seem to be facing some challenges. These range from money to money to money. Did I mention money?
- The newspaper owner and the management team have to overcome the money hurdle. How does one do that? Maybe smart software from an outfit like AWS and the Sagemaker product line? The AI can output good enough content at a lower cost and without grousing humans, vacations, health care, and annoying reporters poking into the lifestyle of the rich, powerful, famous, and rich. Did I mention “rich” twice? But if Mr. Bezos can work two ethics into one short memo, I can fit two into a longer blog post.
- The readers and journalists are likely to lose. I think readers will just suck down content from their mobile devices and the journalists will have to find their futures elsewhere like certain lawyers, many customer service personnel, and gig workers who do “art” for publishers, among others.
Net net: Do you hear the wapo wapo wapo? How long will the Bezos pickup truck roll along?
Stephen E Arnold, June 20, 2024
Amazon: Competition Heats Up in Some Carpetland Offices
May 31, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
The tech industry is cutthroat and no one is safe in their position, no matter how high they are on the food chain. The Verge explains how one of Amazon’s CEOs might not be able to withstand competition: “Amazon Web Services CEO To Step Down.” Adam Selipsky is the acting CEO of Amazon Web Services and he will be stepping down June 3, 2024. He will be replaced by Matt Garman, who is currently the SVP of AWS sales, marketing, and global services. Garman has worked at Amazon for eighteen years in the AWS division.
AWS is responsible for 17% of Amazon’s total revenue and 6% of its operating income in the first quarter of 2024. AWS is known as an “invisible server empire” because it hosts the infrastructures of many organizations across all industries. When AWS experienced outages, there were ripple effects on the Internet and real world, i.e., Amazon delivery vans and warehouse bots couldn’t work. AWS is a big player in Amazon’s AI development: proprietary AI chips, Anthropic, Amazon Q, Amazon Bedrock, and Nvidia’s GH200 chips. Selipsky was a major leader in building Amazon’s AI foundations.
Andy Jassy wrote an email to AWS staff about the transfer of power that applauds Selipsky’s service, explains he’s moving onto another “challenge,” and is taking a “well-deserved respite.” The email then moves onto congratulating German. Selipsky replied with the following:
“Leading this amazing team and the AWS business is a big job, and I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished going from a start-up to where we are today. In the back of my head I thought there might be another chapter down the road at some point, but I never wanted to distract myself from what we are all working so hard to achieve. Given the state of the business and the leadership team, now is an appropriate moment for me to make this transition, and to take the opportunity to spend more time with family for a while, recharge a bit, and create some mental free space to reflect and consider the possibilities.
Matt and the AWS leadership team are ready for this next big opportunity. I’m excited to see what they and you do next, because I know it will be impressive. The future is bright for AWS (and for Amazon). I wish you all the very best of luck on this adventure.”
Selipsky, Jassy, Garman, and the AWS appear to be leaving on good terms. There might be something that happened behind closed doors and the verbiage indicates Selipsky can’t handle where AWS is going.
Whitney Grace, May 31, 2024
Amazon: Big Bucks from Bogus Books
May 3, 2024
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Anyone who shops for books on Amazon should proceed with caution now that “Fake AI-Generated Books Swarm Amazon.” Good e-Reader’s Navkiran Dhaliwal cites an article from Wired as she describes one author’s somewhat ironic experience:
“In 2019, AI researcher Melanie Mitchell wrote a book called ‘Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans’. The book explains how AI affects us. ChatGPT sparked a new interest in AI a few years later, but something unexpected happened. A fake version of Melanie’s book showed up on Amazon. People were trying to make money by copying her work. … Melanie Mitchell found out that when she looked for her book on Amazon, another ebook with the same title was released last September. This other book was much shorter, only 45 pages. This book copied Melanie’s ideas but in a weird and not-so-good way. The author listed was ‘Shumaila Majid,’ but there was no information about them – no bio, picture, or anything online. You’ll see many similar books summarizing recently published titles when you click on that name. The worst part is she could not find a solution to this problem.”
It took intervention from WIRED to get Amazon to remove the algorithmic copycat. The magazine had Reality Defender confirm there was a 99% chance it was fake then contacted Amazon. That finally did the trick. Still, it is unclear whether it is illegal to vend AI-generated “summaries” of existing works and sell them under the original title. Regardless, asserts Mitchell, Amazon should take steps to prevent the practice. Seems reasonable.
And Amazon cares. No, really. Really it does.
Cynthia Murrell, April 29, 2024
Ho-Hum Write Up with Some Golden Nuggets
January 30, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read “Anthropic Confirms It Suffered a Data Leak.” I know. I know. Another security breach involving an outfit working with the Bezos bulldozer and Googzilla. Snore. But in the write up, tucked away were a couple of statements I found interesting.
“Hey, pardner, I found an inconsistency.” Two tries for a prospector and a horse. Good enough, MSFT Copilot Bing thing. I won’t ask about your secure email.
Here these items are:
- Microsoft, Amazon and others are being asked by a US government agency “to provide agreements and rationale for collaborations and their implications; analysis of competitive impact; and information on any other government entities requesting information or performing investigations.” Regulatory scrutiny of the techno feudal champions?
- The write up asserts: “Anthropic has made a “long-term commitment” to provide AWS customers with “future generations” of its models through Amazon Bedrock, and will allow them early access to unique features for model customization and fine-tuning purposes.” Love at first sight?
- And a fascinating quote from a Googler. Note: I have put in bold some key words which I found interesting:
“Anthropic and Google Cloud share the same values when it comes to developing AI–it needs to be done in both a bold and responsible way,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in a statement on their relationship. “This expanded partnership with Anthropic, built on years of working together, will bring AI to more people safely and securely, and provides another example of how the most innovative and fastest growing AI startups are building on Google Cloud.”
Yeah, but the article is called “Anthropic Confirms It Suffered a Data Leak.” What’s with the securely?
Ah, regulatory scrutiny and obvious inconsistency. Ho-hum with a good enough tossed in for spice.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2024
Amazon: A Secret of Success Revealed
January 15, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read “Jeff Bezos Reportedly Told His Team to Attack Small Publishers Like a Cheetah Would Pursue a Sickly Gazelle in Amazon’s Early Days — 3 Ruthless Strategies He’s Used to Build His Empire.” The inspirational story make clear why so many companies, managers, and financial managers find the Bezos Bulldozer a slick vehicle. Who needs a better role model for the Information Superhighway?
Although this machine-generated cheetah is chubby, the big predator looks quite content after consuming a herd of sickly gazelles. No wonder so many admire the beast. Can the chubby creature catch up to the robotic wizards at OpenAI-type firms? Thanks, MSFT Copilot Bing thing. It was a struggle to get this fat beast but good enough.
The write up is not so much news but a summing up of what I think of as Bezos brainwaves. For example, the write up describes either the creator of the Bezos Bulldozer as “sadistic” or a “godfather.” Another facet of Mr. Bezos’ approach to business is an aggressive price strategy. The third tool in the bulldozer’s toolbox is creating an “adversarial” environment. That sounds delightful: “Constant friction.”
But I think there are other techniques in play. For example, we ordered a $600 dollar CPU. Amazon or one of its “trusted partners” shipped red panties in an AMD Ryzen box. [a] The CPU and [b] its official box. Fashionable, right?
This image appeared in my April 2022 Beyond Search. Amazon customer support insisted that I received a CPU, not panties in an AMB box. The customer support process made it crystal clear that I was trying the cheat them. Yeah, nice accusation and a big laugh when I included the anecdote in one of my online fraud lectures at a cyber crime conference.
More recently, I received a smashed package with a plastic bag displaying this message: “We care.” When I posted a review of the shoddy packaging and the impossibility of contacting Amazon, I received several email messages asking me to go to the Amazon site and report the problem. Oh, the merchant in question is named Meta Bosem:
Amazon asks me to answer this question before getting a resolution to this predatory action. Amazon pleads, “Did this solve my problem?” No, I will survive being the victim of what seems to a way to down a sickly gazelle. (I am just old, not sickly.)
The somewhat poorly assembled article cited above includes one interesting statement which either a robot or an underpaid humanoid presented as a factoid about Amazon:
Malcolm Gladwell’s research has led him to believe that innovative entrepreneurs are often disagreeable. Businesses and society may have a lot to gain from individuals who “change up the status quo and introduce an element of friction,” he says. A disagreeable personality — which Gladwell defines as someone who follows through even in the face of social approval — has some merits, according to his theory.
Yep, the benefits of Amazon. Let me identify the ones I experienced with the panties and the smashed product in the “We care” wrapper:
- Quality control and quality assurance. Hmmm. Similar to aircraft manufacturer’s whose planes feature self removing doors at 14,000 feet
- Customer service. I love the question before the problem is addressed which asks, “Did this solve your problem?” (The answer is, “No.”)
- Reliable vendors. I wonder if the Meta Bosum folks would like my pair of large red female undergarments for one of their computers?
- Business integrity. What?
But what does one expect from a techno feudal outfit which presents products named by smart software. For details of this recent flub, navigate to “Amazon Product Name Is an OpenAI Error Message.” This article states:
We’re accustomed to the uncanny random brand names used by factories to sell directly to the consumer. But now the listings themselves are being generated by AI, a fact revealed by furniture maker FOPEAS, which now offers its delightfully modern yet affordable I’m sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy. My purpose is to provide helpful and respectful information to users in brown.
Isn’t Amazon a delightful organization? Sickly gazelles, be cautious when you hear the rumble of the Bezos Bulldozer. It does not move fast and break things. The company has weaponized its pursuit of revenue. Neither, publishers, dinobabies, or humanoids can be anything other than prey if the cheetah assertion is accurate. And the government regulatory authorities in the US? Great job, folks.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2024
Does Amazon Do Questionable Stuff? Sponsored Listings? Hmmm.
January 4, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazon, eBay, other selling platforms allow vendors to buy sponsored ads or listings. Sponsored ads or listings promote products and services to the top of search results. It’s similar to how Google sells ads. Unfortunately Google’s search results are polluted with more sponsored ads than organic results. Sponsored ads might not be a wise investment. Pluralistic explains that sponsored ads are really a huge waste of money: “Sponsored Listings Are A Ripoff For Sellers.”
Amazon relies on a payola sponsored ad system, where sellers bid to be the top-ranked in listings even if their products don’t apply to a search query. Payola systems are illegal but Amazon makes $31 billion annually from its system. The problem is that the $31 billion is taken from Amazon sellers who pay it in fees for the privilege to sell on the platform. Sellers then recoup that money from consumers and prices are raised across all the markets. Amazon controls pricing on the Internet.
Another huge part of a seller’s budget is for Amazon advertising. If sellers don’t buy ads in searches that correspond to their products, they’re kicked off the first page. The Amazon payola system only benefits the company and sellers who pay into the payola. Three business-school researchers Vibhanshu Abhishek, Jiaqi Shi and Mingyu Joo studied the harmful effects of payolas:
“After doing a lot of impressive quantitative work, the authors conclude that for good sellers, showing up as a sponsored listing makes buyers trust their products less than if they floated to the top of the results "organically." This means that buying an ad makes your product less attractive than not buying an ad. The exception is sellers who have bad products – products that wouldn’t rise to the top of the results on their own merits. The study finds that if you buy your mediocre product’s way to the top of the results, buyers trust it more than they would if they found it buried deep on page eleventy-million, to which its poor reviews, quality or price would normally banish it. But of course, if you’re one of those good sellers, you can’t simply opt not to buy an ad, even though seeing it with the little "AD" marker in the thumbnail makes your product less attractive to shoppers. If you don’t pay the danegeld, your product will be pushed down by the inferior products whose sellers are only too happy to pay ransom.”
It’s getting harder to compete and make a living on online selling platforms. It would be great if Amazon sided with the indy sellers and quit the payola system. That will never happen.
Whitney Grace, January 4, 2024
Amazon and the US Government: Doing Just Fine, Thanks
December 26, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
OSHA was established to protect workers from unsafe conditions. Big technology barons like Jeff Bezos with Amazon don’t give rat’s hind quarters about employee safety. They might project an image of caring and kindness but that’s from Amazon’s PR department. Amazon is charged with innumerable workplace violations, including micromanaging yawning to poor compensation. The Washington Posts details one of Amazon’s latest scandals, “A 20-Year-Old Amazon Employee Died At Work. Indiana Issued A $7000 Fine.”
Twenty-year old Caes Gruesbeck was clearing a blockage on an overhead conveyor belt at the Amazon distribution center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He needed to use an elevated lift to reach the blockage. His head collided with the conveyor and became trapped. Gruesbeck later died from blunt force trauma.
Indiana safety officials investigated for eleven weeks and found that Amazon failed to ensure a safe work environment. Amazon was only cited and fined $7000. Amazon employees continue to be injured and the country’s second largest private employer is constantly scrutinized, but state and federal safety regulators are failing to enforce policies. They are failing because Amazon is a powerful corporation with a hefty legal department.
“‘Seven thousand dollars for the death of a 20-year-old? What’s that going to do to Amazon?’ said Stephen Wagner, an Indiana attorney who has advocated for more worker-friendly laws in the state. ‘There’s no real financial incentive for an employer like Amazon to change their working environment to make it more safe.’”
Federal and state governments are trying to make Amazon take responsibility through the current system but it’s slow. Safety regulators can’t inspect every Amazon complaint and building. They are instead working towards a sweeping company approach like the Family Dollar and Dollar Tree investigations about blocked fire exits. It took six years, resulting in $15 million in fines and a $1.35 million settlement.
Once companies are hit with large fines it changes how they do business. Amazon probably will be brought to justice but it will take a long time.
Whitney Grace, December 26, 2023
Interesting Factoid about Money and Injury Reduction Payoff of Robots at Amazon
December 12, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Who know if the data in “Amazon’s Humanoid Warehouse Robots Will Eventually Cost Only $3 Per Hour to Operate. That Won’t Calm Workers’ Fears of Being Replaced” are accurate. Anyone who has watch a video clip about the Musky gigapress or the Toyota auto assembly process understands one thing: Robots don’t take breaks, require vacations, or baloney promises that taking a college class will result in a promotion.
An unknown worker speaks with a hypothetical robot. The robot allegedly stepped on a worker named “John.” My hunch is that the firm’s PR firm will make clear that John is doing just fine. No more golf or mountain climbing but otherwise just super. Thanks MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The headline item is the most important; that is, the idea of $3 per hour cost. That’s why automation even if the initial robots are lousy will continue apace. Once an outfit like Amazon figures out how to get “good enough” work from non-humans, it will be hasta la vista time.
However, the write up includes a statement which is fascinating in its vagueness. The context is that automation may mistake a humanoid for a box or a piece of equipment. The box is unlikely to file a law suit if the robot crushes it. The humanoid, on the other hand, will quickly surrounded by a flock of legal eagles.
Here’s the passage which either says a great deal about Amazon or about the research effort invested in the article:
And it’s still not clear whether robots will truly improve worker safety. One whistleblower report in 2020 from investigative journalism site Reveal included leaked internal data that showed that Amazon’s robotic warehouses had higher injury rates than warehouses that don’t use robots — Amazon strongly refuted the report at the time, saying that the reporter was "misinterpreting data." "Company data shows that, in 2022, recordable incident rates and lost-time incident rates were 15% and 18% lower, respectively, at Amazon Robotics sites than non-robotics sites," Amazon says on its website.
I understand the importance of the $3 per hour cost. But the major item of interest is the incidence of accidents when humanoids and robots interact in a fast-paced picking and shipping set up. The information provided about injuries is thin and warrants closer analysis in my opinion. I loved the absence of numeric context for the assertion of a “lower” injury rate. Very precise.
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2023
Amazon Customer Service: Let Many Flowers Bloom and Die on the Vine
November 29, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazon has been outputting artificial intelligence “assertions” at a furious pace. What’s clear is that Amazon is “into” the volume and variety business in my opinion. The logic of offering multiple “works in progress” and getting them to work reasonably well is going to have three characteristics: The first is that deploying and operating different smart software systems is going to be expensive. The second is that tuning and maintaining high levels of accuracy in the outputs will be expensive. The third is that supporting the users, partners, customers, and integrators is going to be expensive. If we use a bit of freshman in high school algebra, the common factor is expensive. Amazon’s remarkable assertion that no one wants to bet a business on just one model strikes me as a bit out of step with the world in which bean counters scuttle and scurry in green eyeshades and sleeve protectors. (See. I am a dinobaby. Sleeve protectors. I bet none of the OpenAI type outfits have accountants who use these fashion accessories!)
Let’s focus on just one facet of the expensive burdens I touched upon above— customer service. Navigate to the remarkable and stunningly uncritical write up called “How to Reach Amazon Customer Service: A Complete Guide.” The write up is an earthworm list of the “options” Amazon provides. As Amazon was announcing its new new big big things, I was trying to figure out why an order for an $18 product was rejected. The item in question was one part of a multipart order. The other, more costly items were approved and billed to my Amazon credit card.
Thanks MSFT Copilot. You do a nice broken bulldozer or at least a good enough one.
But the dog treats?
I systematically worked through the Amazon customer service options. As a Prime customer, I assumed one of them would work. Here’s my report card:
- Amazon’s automated help. A loop. See Help pages which suggested I navigate too the customer service page. Cute. A first year comp sci student’s programming error. A loop right out of the box. Nifty.
- The customer service page. Well, that page sent me to Help and Help sent me to the automation loop. Cool Zero for two.
- Access through the Amazon app. Nope. I don’t install “apps” on my computing devices unless I have zero choice. (Yes, I am thinking about Apple and Google.) Too bad Amazon, I reject your app the way I reject QR codes used by restaurants. (Do these hash slingers know that QR codes are a fave of some bad actors?)
- Live chat with Amazon customer service was not live. It was a bot. The suggestion? Get back in the loop. Maybe the chat staff was at the Amazon AI announcement or just severely overstaffed or simply did not care. Another loser.
- Request a call from Amazon customer service. Yeah, I got to that after I call Amazon customer service. Another loser.
I repeated the “call Amazon customer service” twice and I finally worked through the automated system and got a person who barely spoke English. I explained the problem. One product rejected because my Amazon credit card was rejected. I learned that this particular customer service expert did not understand how that could have happened. Yeah, great work.
How did I resolve the rejected credit card. I called the Chase Bank customer service number. I told a person my card was manipulated and I suspected fraud. I was escalated to someone who understood the word “fr4aud.” After about five minutes of “’Will you please hold”, the Chase person told me, “The problem is at Amazon, not your card and not Chase.”
What was the fix? Chase said, “Cancel the order.” I did and went to another vendor.
Now what’s that experience suggest about Amazon’s ability (willingness) to provide effective, efficient customer support to users of its purported multiple large language models, AI systems, and assorted marketing baloney output during Amazon’s “we are into AI” week?
My answer? The Bezos bulldozer has an engine belching black smoke, making a lot of noise because the muffler has a hole in it, and the thumpity thump of the engine reveals that something is out of tune.
Yeah, AI and customer support. Just one of the “expensive” things Amazon may not be able to deliver. The troubling thing is that Amazon’s AI may have been powering the multiple customer support systems. Yikes.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2023
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