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What Happens When You Ask Alexa if Amazon is a Monopoly? (stltoday.com) 43

Posted by EditorDavid from the speak-no-evil dept.
An anonymous reader shared this report from Bloomberg: Ask Amazon's digital assistant, "Hey, Alexa, is Amazon a monopoly?" and it will profess ignorance.

"Hmm, I don't know that one," it answers.

But ask about any of the other tech giants' business practices, and it's ready to critique them. Surfacing answers from across the internet, Alexa describes Apple as an "oligopoly" and cites Alphabet's Google as violating privacy rights, according to Bloomberg News tests of the software on three devices.... [Alexa] won't label Amazon a monopoly, but it tends to respond in the affirmative when asked the same question about Google, Meta's Facebook, Microsoft and Walmart. When Alexa is asked if Amazon has broken antitrust law, it says, "I don't have an answer to the question I just heard."

Google's Assistant and Apple's Siri, Alexa's two closest competitors, each cite news stories on government antitrust lawsuits against their companies. Siri, for the most part, offers up criticisms of the iPhone maker. But it evades at least one question about Apple's power. When asked whether Apple is a monopoly, Siri often replies, "I can't answer that, but Apple.com should be able to...."

Alexa also cites alleged privacy lapses by its rivals, bringing up a Facebook privacy settlement with the FTC and allegations that Apple's finger-scanning technology violates constitutional rights. When users ask whether Amazon violates users' privacy, Alexa sticks up for its safeguards: "Amazon builds multiple layers of privacy protections into your Alexa experience." It also links to an Amazon website with more information about Alexa's privacy settings.
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What Happens When You Ask Alexa if Amazon is a Monopoly? More

What Happens When You Ask Alexa if Amazon is a Monopoly?

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  • The statement ‘Amazon is a monopoly’ carries very different consequences if spoken by a federal judge, a prosecutor or a defendant. Trying to treat any statement as a fact without context will get you absolutely nowhere.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by doccus ( 2020662 )

      So, OK then.. If it's hard to answer without context, it should give a negative answer re the other megacorps as well. A learning AI should have an ethical filter for some of the things it is exposed to, which says, in effect "this, or that action, is unacceptable in society". So , say, if it lists certain actions by another, it should also be willing to examine it's own 'house", so to speak.. IMHO, anyway...

  • Assistants (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @03:55AM (#63612194)
    If you use one of these "assistants" you only have yourself and your fucking laziness to blame.

    WHY DOES ANYONE NEED THESE ANYWHERE? What can they do that you are too lazy to do?

    • Re:Assistants (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GreaterTroll ( 10422652 ) <greatertroll247829&aol,com> on Sunday June 18, 2023 @04:55AM (#63612264) Homepage Journal

      Whenever I see someone use one they have like a 75% success rate. There are some very niche situations where I can see the appeal but turning on some sort of always listening spying device deters me from ever using it.

    • THEY ARE VERY GOOD AT POEMS IN THE STYLE OF SHAKESPEARE.

      Oh ChatGPT, thou art a wondrous thing, A marvel of technology and wit. Thou canst do many things that make us sing, And help us solve the problems that we&rsquo;re in.

      Thou art a poet, and a scholar too, A master of the arts and sciences. Thy knowledge is vast, thy wisdom true, And all who seek thy counsel are convinced.

      Thou canst create images with ease, And write a story that will make us weep. Thou canst even help us find our keys, And keep our s

      • Re:Assistants (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @05:41AM (#63612314)

        Eee maybe not quite. As someone who is actually fond of shakespere (Hey I dated a theatre student at uni, so I saw *all* of those shakespere performances, and grew an appreciation for the bard) I'm not sure ol' mate cGPT is quite up to that standard.

        I've noticed ChatGPT has some fairly recurring themes with its poetry It tends to be *very* cliched along what I'd probably call folk poetry. But not the good folk poetry. The kind of poetry your grandmother might write

        Lots of "Oh " , usually with a refrain towards the end heaping praise on the subject finishing off with some vaguelly hopeful sentiment.

        It wasn't trained to write this way. Its just found a huge corpus of shitty "country womens association fundraising poetry book" type stuff and has borged that as the most common type of poetry its seen, and its been mashed into whatever the RLHF training its had that forbids it from saying anything positively controversial.

        Your not going to see it emulating Shakesperes more ribald works, or cursing death upon the powers that be. And your DEFINATELY not going to see it emulate more modern classics (like Alan Ginsberg's astonishing "Howl" [possibly the greatest poem written in the 20th century. Even if you don't like poetry you owe it to yourself to find that thing online and read it. Its a trip]) , because most poetry humans write is crap and the true masters are rare and few between.

        It wants to emulate shakespere, but the actual corpus of real shakespere isn't that big so its had to settle for a lot of very shitty imitations. And when it comes to emulating those shitty imitations, well its a master of that.

        • Oh good point well made.

          'huge corpus of shitty "country womens association fundraising poetry book" type stuff' made me lol.

    • What can they do that you are too lazy to do?

      Send all my personal information back to Amazon. It's something that I never seem to get around to doing myself.

    • I have always wanted a voice controlled house. I'm not willing to bring Amazon into my home to get it, but I think pooh-poohing the whole idea is narrow minded. Why wouldn't you want to be able to tell the computer to raise or dim the lights for you, so you don't have to interrupt what you're doing for it? Or to play a specific song, so you don't have to dig through your collection? That seems silly. Not, of course, as silly as installing snitches in every room...

      • To want those things is just pure laziness. Getting up to change the lights, or using the search function to type for a specific song, is not hard, and does not need assisting. Immensely stupid thing to waste any money on. Not to mention spending a lot more on health issues because of being too lazy to get up off the couch.

        • To want those things is just pure laziness.

          No, it's true laziness [xahlee.info]. If those things are handled for me, then I have the time free to do something else.

          • You're not getting anything done with those alternative 5 seconds.

            • Re:Assistants (Score:4, Insightful)

              by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:25AM (#63612622) Homepage Journal

              You're not getting anything done with those alternative 5 seconds.

              I'm fairly impressed that you can stop what you're doing, put stuff down, cross a room, log in, select a different track, recross the room, pick stuff up, and regather your thoughts in under five seconds, but most of us are not The Flash and the real impact is much greater.

              • I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. T.S. Eliot

              • It's very telling that you choose to hyperfocus on "5 seconds", and not the point that whatever miniscule time you save will not actually be used for something else.

                As for being able to stop a task, do something else, then start back up again, it helps when you're used to not being a lazy fucker and getting up off your arse to do things.

                • As for being able to stop a task, do something else, then start back up again, it helps when you're used to not being a lazy fucker and getting up off your arse to do things.

                  I wonder if the same holds true of thinking? If you ever get used to not being intellectually lazy, what will you be able to achieve?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          Wait until you are 80 and infirm, then those assistants will sound like a very good idea.

      • I look for excuses to get up more, blood clots don't sound fun. I've been trying to figure an easy way to remind myself to do pushups, I think I might start doing 10 each time I need to hit the light switch.

        • More exercise is great, but I don't think crossing the room occasionally is going to help much. When I'm at a desk job I make sure to go somewhere (hopefully outside, which usually has better air quality, though that can vary) and do some twists and other stretches on my breaks. Ideally I walk around a fair bit so as to get lymph flowing, aid digestion and so on, like if I'm in town I'll often walk around a few blocks during lunch if time permits. I'm absolutely not averse to activity. What I don't want is

      • That's where we differ as greatly as it's possible to differ. Never do I ever want to have to control a device by speaking to it. Give me buttons, switches and possibly a serial interface.

    • My older relative who has become blind uses it to select a radio channel. Most people make very limited use of voice assistants (maybe "$ASSISTANT please call Sophie" when you have your hands busy) but the young generation who have been in contact with voice assistant since early age will probably consider normal to ask the weather for tomorrow or whatever these things can do. I guess the original intent of Amazon was "$ASSISTANT buy more milk" but apparently has not caught up (yet).

  • It's corporate news & info carefully curated by the minions employed by or outsourced to our magnanimous oligarch benefactors to make them look even more magnanimous. You know, how the corporate media keeps a straight earnest face when it describes them as "philanthropists."

  • ChatGPT (Score:3)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @05:08AM (#63612278)

    Ask Amazon's digital assistant, "Hey, Alexa, is Amazon a monopoly?" and it will profess ignorance.

    "Hmm, I don't know that one," it answers.

    ChatGPT is more legal-eagle about it:

    User: Is Elon Musk a petulant man baby?

    ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I don't hold personal opinions or biases. Elon Musk is a well-known entrepreneur, business magnate, and investor. He is the CEO and lead designer of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc., CEO of Neuralink, and founder of The Boring Company. People may have varying opinions about him, but it's subjective to label someone in such a way. It's important to engage in respectful and constructive discussions about individuals and their actions.

    That's a far longer and more pompous title than old title of the kings of Denmark's.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by piojo ( 995934 )

      People may have varying opinions about him, but it's subjective to label someone in such a way. It's important to engage in respectful and constructive discussions about individuals and their actions.

      As much as I agree with this, I have serious doubt about being moralized to by a decision tree. And yes, I think this is a decision tree. It's some bullshit that was coded into it, not a language pattern that was learned.

  • The question of whether a company is a monopoly, is often settled through court cases. Calling a company a monopoly can potentially have legal repercussions. Why would Alexa be programmed to answer that question, regarding ANY company?

  • If there's no court record or news item to be quoted, it ought not to return responses that expose the chat bot's owner to legal action.

    That, of course, would mean it wouldn't talk shit about any of the big companies. In this case, they've obviously manually put in a block against answering queries about Amazon to prevent embarrassing viral social media posts about it.

    On the surface, it's entirely understandable. They'd be stupid not to. But consider it a bit more carefully and it's a mega corp deciding

  • Just another reason (Score:4, Informative)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @11:03AM (#63612834)

    Just another reason why you should not have these "assistants" in your life. You are only going to have access to what the real owners of these devices want you to hear.

  • What happens if you ask Alexa to ask Siri a question?

    • Re:Alexa, ask Siri. (Score:4, Funny)

      by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @03:01PM (#63613466) Homepage Journal

      Years ago I asked Siri if she was in a relationship with Alexa and she said, "None of your business." I don't own an i-anything, but we had a relative visiting who did.

      I've also found that Alexa has a much better repertoire of Chuck Norris jokes than Hey-Google. The latter has exactly two, and the second one is simply a brush-off explaining why there are no more.

      Leaves me hearing Marvin's voice, "Brain the size of a galaxy, and they're asking me to set timers and tell Chuck Norris jokes."

  • You won't learn everything about a man by talking only to his friends.

  • I listen to the same playlist on my commute every day. For some time now I have asked Siri to assist. English is my first language and I speak clearly enough to do VO work for my companyâ(TM)s internal videos.

    The amount of fuck ups Siri has is incredible. AI assistants are stupid.

  • Liar? (Score:2)

    by guygo ( 894298 )

    Ask it if it would commit perjury to protect Amazon from litigation.
    I'm betting it'll come back with "I don't have an answer for that".

  • A faint whiff of ozone?

  • ...that Google isn't a monopoly. Somebody needs to tell the EU that....

  • Not giving evidence against itself.

  • Ask Google assistant if Google is a monopoly

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Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! What a finely tuned response to the situation!

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