Companies keep forcing AI features to do things that no one ever thought they needed, or indeed ever conceived of.
In this unfortunate category, Amazon’s new feature for generating mini-podcast segments that shill for products on its shopping platform really takes the cake.
The bizarre feature was spotlighted by Katie Notopoulos at Business Insider, who recorded the Amazon AI’s pathetic attempt of portraying an engaging discussion on just about the dumbest thing for anyone to talk about at length: adult diaper rash cream.
Imagine the most grating podcast advert in the world. Not the kind where a pre-made commercial plays, but when the hosts have been paid by a brand to talk about its product, leveraging their “authentic” personas to wax lyrical about an AI business platform or weird supplement. It’s kind of like that, but somehow vastly worse.
“Today our AI-generated shopping show is exploring the Welmedix Rapid Relief Diaper Rash Cream,” the AI host begins. “Emma, what makes this hospital-grade cream different from standard diaper rash products?”
“Well, it’s really interesting. This cream uses a dual-action approach” the co-host, “Emma,” replies, before droning on with barely repackaged marketing copy.
You can even call in with questions. When Notopoulos writes “help my butt hurts” in a chat window, the AI host responds, “Alright Katie, we’ve got you. You’re dealing with discomfort, and this cream is designed for exactly that kind of irritation. Emma, what can you tell them?”
It gets worse. Though the AI podcast feature doesn’t work on all products, someone else found that it was even willing to glaze a “fake dog poop” item.
“At four inches long, it’s sized perfectly for believability,” the chirpy AI enthuses. “The chunky texture and authentic brown coloring make it a real show-stopper.”
An Amazon spokesperson told Notopoulous that the AI “podcast” feature is “powered by several AI technologies working together, including Amazon Bedrock.” The information it uses is based on product listings and what it pulls from other online sources, they added.
Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos seems to have a predilection for faux AI podcasts (and AI in general). In December, his newspaper The Washington Post, against the wishes of staffers, launched an AI podcast feature that badly regurgitates its articles, with predictably disastrous results.
Who are these fake podcasts for? And is this really what we’re desiccating water tables, speed-running global warming, and ruining entire rural towns over? Yes, of course.
In all, Amazon’s new feature is a hellish experiment in engineering just about the most disingenuous content imaginable. But it’s also kind of funny that, gazillions of dollars into the AI boom later, we’ve reinvented the late night TV infomercial, only instead of Billy Mays yelling at you, you’re being bored to tears by a machine’s bad impersonation of a podcaster who sold their soul to their show’s sponsors years ago.
Notopoulos also saw the gallows humor in the absurd feature.
“I think it could be one of the funniest, closest endpoints to human civilization we’ve seen yet in our new AI-enabled world,” she wrote.
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