Feeling duped by Amazon's "magical AI" bullshit

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the author's experience with the Amazon Go store, a futuristic shopping concept that uses advanced technology to enable a seamless, checkout-free shopping experience. The author was initially impressed by the technology, but later learned that the "magical AI" behind the store was actually powered by a large team of off-shore contractors monitoring the store's cameras. The article explores the history of similar "magical" technologies that were later revealed to be tricks, and the author's feelings of being duped by the Amazon Go store's marketing.

🙋 Q&A

[01] The author's experience with the Amazon Go store

1. What was the author's initial impression of the Amazon Go store?

• The author was impressed by the futuristic and convenient shopping experience, where they could simply walk in, grab items, and walk out without going through a traditional checkout.
• The author was excited to see this kind of advanced technology in action, as they had heard about similar concepts for decades.

2. What did the author later learn about the technology behind the Amazon Go store?

• The author discovered that the "magical AI" behind the store was actually powered by a large team of off-shore contractors monitoring the store's cameras and tracking customer movements.
• The author felt duped and cheated, as the seamless experience was not actually powered by advanced sensors and automation as the marketing had claimed.

3. How did the author's perception of the Amazon Go store change after learning the truth?

• The author felt disappointed and disillusioned, realizing that the store's technology was not as advanced as it had seemed.
• The author started to approach new technological innovations with more skepticism, as they had seen how some "magical" technologies can hide an "ugly truth" behind the scenes.

[02] The history of "magical" technologies

1. What are some historical examples of "magical" technologies that were later revealed to be tricks?

• The author mentions the chess-playing robot from the 18th century, which was later revealed to have a human operator hidden inside.
• The author also draws a parallel to Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" service, which uses a virtual army of people completing small tasks for pennies.

2. How does the Amazon Go store fit into this pattern of "magical" technologies?

• The author argues that the Amazon Go store's seamless, checkout-free experience was also a "fake tech demo", with a large team of off-shore contractors doing the actual work behind the scenes.
• The author questions why this setup continued for so long, without the technology being improved to truly automate the process.

3. What is the author's overall perspective on the history of "magical" technologies?

• The author acknowledges that innovation can be messy, and that early prototypes or betas may involve temporary fixes or "faked" elements.
• However, the author believes that when the truth is eventually revealed, it can lead to feelings of being duped and a loss of trust in the technology.