In yet another desperate attempt to make sure people know they are using generative AI for something good, Amazon.com (I’m specifying .com, since I mostly use .co.uk, when I need to use Amazon, and sadly, sometimes you do) decided to roll out some new functionality: You can now see what assumptions the system is making about you, in plain text.

You can find this by going to your profile and under “Ordering and shopping preferences” you’ll find “About you”. It has various categories and what the system thinks about you for each category.

Now, what I assume is happening here is that they are adding these as part of some system prompt when you search. Why would they want that? They probably think it allows for a better experience, but in reality, for most people, this is probably annoying. For example, under “Home & Family”, I have two pieces of information about me: “Likely lives in Lahti” and “Owns Blu-ray and DVD players”. Both true, and yes, that is plural for the latter. However, if I needed to buy, say, a vacuum cleaner, how would those affect my search? Would it try to push movies about vacuum cleaners to me? No, apparently not (I tested), but those pieces of information it has somehow gathered about me (and it is not a mystery, since the only reasons I ever use Amazon.com is to buy movies not available in Europe or books not available in Europe).

The assumptions it has made about me are quite benign. Besides where I live, all the assumptions are about movies. Sure, I like horror, I like international and independent movies, I don’t necessarily need premium formats, but sometimes I buy them when the price difference is small, I apparently like Criterion (it’s more like I like movies that Criterion has picked up for physical media), and so forth. “Studies cinema as an artform”? “Studies” is quite strong here, but you know, I like to understand cinema, sure, I just don’t do it professionally. However, other people get weird shit. “Has flat buttocks”, “Husband has skinny legs” and “Cusses when scared” are three examples given in this Fast Company article.

But here’s the thing… you can edit those. You can remove things, you can change things, you can add things. What do we know about LLMs? They are easily jailbroken. So, maybe there’s a way to get it to give you discounts, since I bet they are constantly trying to find ways to do personalized pricing. Well, I guess that’s the best you could get it to do.

Funnier approach would be to add your own little factoids about yourself. Maybe you want Amazon.com to know that you really like to watch the paint dry or that you are looking to change your glass window panes to diamonds, or that you revel in the smell of piss of the 26 cats living in your home as your roommates. Sky’s the limit here.