I don’t see how Amazon or anyone else can prevent AI agents from acting on someone’s behalf. Can they prevent me from using the keyboard or mouse I like? What about the browser I like? What about screen readers? Isn’t trying to ban use of an AI tool a potential violation of disability law? What if I need help from one of these tools to perform actions on my behalf? Or for that matter, isn’t this an antitrust issue - with companies trying to control everything with unreasonable demands?
Note that the broken patent system is a part of the abuse enablement. Companies like Amazon rack up huge portfolios of mostly frivolous patents for this purpose. They may claim they only use them defensively. But the reality is if you cross them in any way, they can then “defensively” make your life miserable by abusing the law through the broken patent system. For example if a company like Amazon copies your innovative product, you can’t practically go after them, because they hold all sorts of leverage through the patent system.
The reason Amazon doesn’t want AI involved is because then AI could skip Amazon altogether in the future and checkout directly on seller’s websites.
It’s actually the idea behind the decentralized marketplace I’m building. It uses MCP-UI to bring the whole storefront and checkout into the chat.
I’m keeping a close eye on e-commerce and AI and the recent deal Paypal made with OpenAI and Amazon getting aggressive, it’s clear they want to make AI powered commerce a walled garden.
Agentic browsers raise a lot of questions that were hanging there even before LLMs.
Can I ask my partner to buy a product on Amazon?
Can I ask my personal assistant to buy a product on Amazon?
Can I hire a contractor to buy products on Amazon?
Can I communicate with a contractor via API to direct them what products to buy?
What if there is no human on the other end and its an LLM?
Same issue with LinkedIn. I know execs who have assistants running their socials. Is this legal?
American companies do this a lot. Rule for thee, not for me. For example lawyers. Companies have a team of lawyers to ensure you only play by their terms, on terms they can only understand, with disproportionate amortized advantages/disadvantages (who can afford to add $1000 to their disney+ subscription? Disney spreads the cost lawyers across millions of transactions...). Or they retain their right to sue you, but force you into arbitration.
Not that I suspect perplexity is any kind of innocent of that behavior (or at least will remain so if extremely successful)
Now companies are doing the same with AI. We can use AI, and other tools to maximize what we extract from you, but you cannot use AI to help yourself with better outcomes.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 33.7 ms ] threadNote that the broken patent system is a part of the abuse enablement. Companies like Amazon rack up huge portfolios of mostly frivolous patents for this purpose. They may claim they only use them defensively. But the reality is if you cross them in any way, they can then “defensively” make your life miserable by abusing the law through the broken patent system. For example if a company like Amazon copies your innovative product, you can’t practically go after them, because they hold all sorts of leverage through the patent system.
It’s actually the idea behind the decentralized marketplace I’m building. It uses MCP-UI to bring the whole storefront and checkout into the chat.
I’m keeping a close eye on e-commerce and AI and the recent deal Paypal made with OpenAI and Amazon getting aggressive, it’s clear they want to make AI powered commerce a walled garden.
That would be nice indeed. Let’s decouple ratings, reviews etc from the place we purchase the product from. Those can never be in the same place.
Can I ask my partner to buy a product on Amazon? Can I ask my personal assistant to buy a product on Amazon? Can I hire a contractor to buy products on Amazon? Can I communicate with a contractor via API to direct them what products to buy? What if there is no human on the other end and its an LLM?
Same issue with LinkedIn. I know execs who have assistants running their socials. Is this legal?
Not that I suspect perplexity is any kind of innocent of that behavior (or at least will remain so if extremely successful)
Now companies are doing the same with AI. We can use AI, and other tools to maximize what we extract from you, but you cannot use AI to help yourself with better outcomes.
I also commented here that it sounds anti-competitive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45816871