Incidentally, I just placed an online supermarket delivery order via Amazon (because I need a food drop for stuff I can't carry upstairs right now) and their unit price calculations on groceries are broken, looks like a multiply instead of divide error to go from pack size to price per kg. Feels like AI-induced enshittification has hit the big boys.
15
Replies
1
Boost
@cstross Amazon went hard on “Use our LLM for everything in your job, or else.” 2-3 years ago.
@cstross Their price per oz has been off for many products a long time. I have wondered if it’s a text field rather than a calculation. I saw one yesterday that was off by more than a decimal place. It might be getting worse as well.
@cstross Google Maps transit directions have always been iffy, but now they're often completely absurd. Wait a day rather than take a different route, or transfer to a different bus going to the same place, that kind of thing.
@cstross I have noticed that Amazon price listings frequently get such calculations wrong even for basic non-food consumables, and they do engage in surveillance capitalist, behavioural pricing games with users.
@cstross
My cousin came across a reverse price break on electronic components a while back. Get a reasonable number for a pittance. Or a large number for an absurd amount.
We now each have a lifetime supply of micro toggle switches.
@cstross if it's wrong, they can be, and should be, sued
@bellinghman It's more a case of a four-pack of 500ml bottles of Huel costing £11.99, and Amazon helpfully adding that this meant £23 per litre! But you pay by the multipack price.
@cstross If Amazon is doing that, Amazon is breaking consumer regulations. If it's an Amazon AI, it's still Amazon that is liable. That they're overstating the UEP is better for you, but worse for the store
@bellinghman Extra fun: I ordered two 200g bags of ground coffee, received coffee beans instead. Turns out Amazon uses a product photo of a bag of ground coffee on the order page for unground beans. (Getting a refund, but also getting decaffeinated and annoyed in the meantime.)
So you can no longer rely on the price info and product photo being correct. I guess Jeff is more focussed on building a bigger rocket than Elon these days?
@cstross has hit them first I’d say from personal experience 🙄
@cstross I don’t understand why if we are in a golden age of AI powered software development, every single consumer facing shopping app is becoming worse.
@cstross a month ago AWS released a bug in their estimated costs generator. At least it was easy to spot?
Charlie, you know full well the computer burden of multiply is less than divide. Over trillions of calculations, the savings add up.
They’re just saving energy. Stockholders are thrilled.
@cstross That data has always been crazy unusable for me anyway. I worked at an Amazon-affiliated start-up, processing data feeds of millions of products, and it became obvious that the data, submitted by suppliers, mixes up units and types and sizes and ways of measuring in ways that make systematic use of it impossible, and suppliers could not give two shits, and attempts at diligence by anyone in my position were swamped by the scale.
