I’ve commented before on the devilishly clever algorithms that underlie the online shopping experience. It’s the Since-you-like-that-howzabout-this? approach to marketing:
- where searching for a specific book by an author naturally brings up other books by the same author, and books by other authors in the same genre
- where searching for a specific brand of hot-chocolate powder understandably generates suggestions about other flavours in the same brand, other brands altogether, and (just a little sideways) marshmallows, sprinkles, and mugs
- where searching for a non-standard light bulb for an antique floor lamp ($8.99) quite reasonably generates a link to the Globe Rechargeable LED Wall Night Light (White) ($18.99) and the Thule Trailway 4-Bike Hitch Mount Bike Rack (Black) ($399.99)
Wait, what?
I swear, if a human light-bulb salesperson suggested out of the blue that I might like to buy a bike rack, I’d edge away slowly and find somewhere else to buy my light bulbs. Somehow it doesn’t feel as weird when software written/designed/vibe-coded by a salesperson does it, but still. As it stands, Canadian Tire obviously has light bulbs and bike racks; just as obviously, I have questions:
- How the heck did the algorithm go from a non-standard light bulb to a vehicle-mounted bike rack?
- Did the “reasonableness” filter even hiccup at pairing an item clocking in at $400 with one costing less than $10?
- Do merchants pay employees to do searches and to report these anomalies so that they can tune the algorithm, or are they happy with the way things are working now?
- Has anyone ever bought both a non-standard light bulb and a bike rack in the same transaction?
I don’t know how you guessed
but I DO need
both a large-base light bulb
and a 4-bike bike rack.
Amazing!
- Finally, what were the suggestions deemed too strange to offer me? Which You-may-also-need pairings missed the cut?
I suspect these will all have to remain among life’s little mysteries.
Seems AI robots are just as hard-pressed to navigate the “system”. The other day, a robot said, when I pressed “3” to reach someone, it said, “I will try to connect you.” What What? Try? TRY?
Barbara – 🙂 My guess is that this is a function of the “extra/indirect words are more polite” principle. This principle leads to the wordy “I would like to inform you…” and similar circumlocutions. There is a point where short is brusque, fair enough – but “try to connect you” seems a little too tentative, for sure.
Welcome to the irrational world of AI. And it only gets worse. And it will invade our health systems. This morning’s news is that the new Claude is “too dangerous to share with the public” because it will allow simpletons like us hack into banks and most other important public institutions with ease. And those entities now are being tasked with preventing such breaches, as if they didn’t have enough to do. Meanwhile, the new bit of software has been shared with all the Big Hats such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. to play with it as they please. What could possibly go wrong?
Laurna – I know. Sigh.
I am almost speechless with the weird association of light bulb and bike rack. Both have two words in the name? Or vendor trying to flog over-stocked bike racks?
Judith – It’s always possible that there’s some deep meaning in it, but I suspect you’re on the right track when you suspect an over-stocked condition. They might as well try – it costs nothing.
It’s not difficult, then, to see how adolescents get hooked on social media. The algorithms are designed to keep you looking.
Tom
Tom – Oh, yes – designed to be addictive. Effective, but not very nice.
But did you get the “one left in aisle 32”
Jim R – I did not, as it turns out. I decided I’d rather have a bike rack. (Not.) When the systems work well, they are a delight – as with directing you to the correct aisle.
You should consider reverse engineering this.
Search for a high value Mountain Bike and AI will suggest
– Thule Trailway Bike Hitch….search that and AI (just to be consistent) will suggest
– Non-Standard Light Bulb for an Antique Floor Lamp
Could happen !!!!!