Amazon Has a Better Idea about Catching Up with Other AI Outfits
September 25, 2024
AWS Program to Bolster 80 AI Startups from Around the World
Can boosting a roster of little-known startups help AWS catch up with Google’s and Microsoft’s AI successes? Amazon must hope so. It just tapped 80 companies from around the world to receive substantial support in its AWS Global Generative AI Accelerator program. Each firm will receive up to $1 million in AWS credits, expert mentorship, and a slot at the AWS re:Invent conference in December.
India’s CXOtoday is particularly proud of the seven recipients from that country. It boasts, “AWS Selects Seven Generative AI Startups from India for Global AWS Generative AI Accelerator.” We learn:
“The selected Indian startups— Convrse, House of Models, Neural Garage, Orbo.ai, Phot.ai, Unscript AI, and Zocket, are among the 80 companies selected by AWS worldwide for their innovative use of AI and their global growth ambitions. The Indian cohort also represents the highest number of startups selected from a country in the Asia-Pacific region for the AWS Global Generative AI Accelerator program.”
The post offers this stat as evidence India is now an AI hotspot. It also supplies some more details about the Amazon program:
“Selected startups will gain access to AWS compute, storage, and database technologies, as well as AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia2, energy-efficient AI chips that offer high performance at the lowest cost. The credits can also be used on Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service that helps companies build and train their own foundation models (FMs), as well as to access models and tools to easily and securely build generative AI applications through Amazon Bedrock. The 10-week program matches participants with both business and technical mentors based on their industry, and chosen startups will receive up to US$1 million each in AWS credits to help them build, train, test, and launch their generative AI solutions. Participants will also have access to technology and technical sessions from program presenting partner NVIDIA.”
See the write-up to learn more about each of the Indian startups selected, or check out the full roster here.
The question is, “Will this help Amazon which is struggling to make Facebook, Google, and Microsoft look like the leaders in the AI derby?”
Cynthia Murrell, September 25, 2024
Hey, Alexa, Why Does Amazon AI Flail?
September 5, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazon has its work cut out for itself. The company has those pesky third-party vendors shipping “interesting” products to customers and then ignoring complaints. Amazon is on the radar of some legal eagles in the EU and the US. Now the company has found itself in an unusual situation: Its super duper smart software does not work. The fix, if the information in “Gen AI Alexa to Use Anthropic Tech After it Struggled for Words” with Amazon’s” is correct, is to use Anthropic AI technology. Hey, why not? Amazon allegedly invested $5 billion in the company. Maybe that implementation of Google technology will do the trick?
The mother is happy with Alexa’s answers. The weird sounds emitted from the confused device surprise her daughter. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The write up reports:
Amazon demoed a generative AI version of Alexa in September 2023 and touted it as being more advanced, conversational, and capable, including the ability to do multiple smart home tasks with simpler commands. Gen AI Alexa is expected to come with a subscription fee, as Alexa has reportedly lost Amazon tens of billions of dollars throughout the years. Earlier reports said the updated voice assistant would arrive in June, but Amazon still hasn’t confirmed an official release date.
A year later, Amazon is punting and giving the cash furnace Alexa more brains courtesy of Anthropic. Will the AI wizards working on Amazon’s own AI have a chance to work in one of the Amazon warehouses?
Ars Technica says without a trace of irony:
The previously announced generative AI version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant “will be powered primarily by Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence models," Reuters reported today. This comes after challenges with using proprietary models, according to the publication, which cited five anonymous people “with direct knowledge of the Alexa strategy.”
Amazon has a desire to convert the money-losing Alexa into a gold mine, or at least a modest one.
This report, if accurate, suggests some interesting sparkles on the Bezos bulldozer’s metal flake paint; to wit:
- The two pizza team approach to technology did not work either for Alexa (the money loser) or the home grown AI money spinner. What other Amazon technologies are falling short of the mark?
- How long will it take to get a money-generating Alexa working and into the hands of customers eager for a better Alexa experience and a monthly or annual subscription for the new Alexa? A year has been lost already, and Alexa users continue to ask for the weather and a timer for cooking broccoli.
- What happens if the product, its integration with smart TV, and the Ring doorbell is like a Pet Rock? The fad has come and gone, replaced by smart watches and mobile phones? The answer: Collectibles!
Why am I questioning Amazon’s technology competency? The recent tie up between Microsoft and Palantir Technologies makes clear that Amazon’s cloud services don’t have the horsepower to pull government sales. When these pieces are shifted around, the resulting puzzle says, “Amazon is flailing to me.” Consider this: AI was beyond the reach of a big money outfit like Amazon. There’s a message in that factoid.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2024
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
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