While the experience of shopping on Amazon has changed quite a bit over the years as the company has grown in size, one handy part has always been the customer reviews — especially when you’re worried that a low priced item is too good to be true.
But now Amazon has a new problem to contend with, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, it’s related to AI.
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Reviews written using ChatGPT have begun to pop up all over Amazon, per a report from CNBC, and people are taking notice of their strange wording.
“As an AI language model, I don’t have a body, but I understand the importance of comfortable clothing during pregnancy,” reads one review for maternity shorts. “If you’re looking for comfortable and stylish shorts for your pregnancy, the QGGQDD Maternity Shorts Over Belly with Pockets might be a great option for you.”
Several other listings contain similar information, all prefaced in a similar fashion with the AI stating that it is an AI, but is able to generate a review for an item based data it gleans from reviews written by people.
While fake reviews are nothing new to Amazon — third parties have even gone as far as to build tools to identify them, such as ReviewMeta.com — the new AI reviews worsen the problem. Amazon has already taken action against fake reviews in the past, suing a Facebook group in 2022 that was allegedly dedicated to generating them.
TheStreet has reached out to Amazon for comment on how it plans to deal with the problem.
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This story was originally published April 26, 2023, 12:25 PM.
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