I tested it out. I asked what is the TBW on an SSD. It got it wrong of course, said 400tbw when the correct value is 600tbw.

Don't trust chatbots, kids.

But what's terrible, there used to be a spot where you can search questions and reviews by keyword. That's gone now and they've replaced it with this generative AI crap. Rather than seeing useful answers/reviews with extra details and context, now all you get is an oversimplified AI generated summary that's likely wrong, and you have no way of verifying apart from skimming through the thousands of reviews.

After you ask the question and wait way too long to generate an AI response there's a "Show related answers" link which works like the old search. So it's not completely gone just yet.

I see it in the Amazon app. Thanks for pointing this out!

I also checked the Amazon website today and now I see the old search box. I would guess they're doing A/B testing right now.

> But what's terrible, there used to be a spot where you can search questions and reviews by keyword. That's gone now and they've replaced it with this generative AI crap. Rather than seeing useful answers/reviews with extra details and context, now all you get is an oversimplified AI generated summary that's likely wrong, and you have no way of verifying apart from skimming through the thousands of reviews.

Damn, this sucks big time! This was a really useful feature

I noticed that Rufus popped up for me a few weeks ago in the Amazon app on my pocket supercomputer. It was late and I was bored when I first saw it, so I dinked around with it for a bit.

It was clearly and obviously ChatGPT, and it was stupendously simple to jailbreak it to do arbitrary ChatGPT things (by basically just giving it verbal permission to do so).

It wrote some dummy code for me. It dabbled around with fairly simple physics questions. (I don't verify any of the output -- I was just goofing around.)

By the very next day, I couldn't get it to do any of that at all, but it was still capable of having a potentially-productive conversation about stuff for sale on Amazon. I expected that this might develop into something actually-useful at some point, and it seemed like it was getting closer.

But more recently, it doesn't even remember what the last prompt was, so conversations (even about product details that would help me make a purchase) are a foregone conclusion.

Thus, Rufus is presently approximately as annoying and devoid of context with its insipid repetitiousness as my nearly-useless Alexa devices are.

there is a prior product/service of that moniker.

will the real rufus please stand up.

Create bootable USB drives the easy way https://rufus.ie/en/

That one looks useful and likely to be still around 24 months from now.

I use rufus all the time, I can vouch for its usefulness!

Just rename it to Dufus to be an indicator of what it can actually do

Isn't there some chess grandmaster who's catchphrase is "Rufus and dufus"? This made me remember that.

Ben Finegold!

I snorted, thank you.

I wonder why they didn’t just continue this under the Alexa product?

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/341090-amazon-alexa-dee... [2022]

I was able to get Rufus (in beta) to sell me combinations of items that would lead to my death or dismemberment. Fun times.

I also got the Kardashian(?) bot on Meta to create skin care products using deadly chemicals. LOL.

Is there any way to disable it?

Shop elsewhere?

I certainly support that recommendation, but it’s not responsive to my question.

Pretend that the button to activate it is a flashing clock on a VCR, and put some black tape over it?

it's like if you don't have an AI chatbot, no matter whether it actually improves the customer experience, are you even a company?

It would be interesting to have a list of companies not run by NPCs mindlessly chasing after the perceived next big thing.