OpenAI’s chatbot has clearly been used by many sellers to create their product title and description. Unfortunately for them, ChatGPT did not grant their request, and so the products have very strange names.
How about buying a calendar themed “ I’m sorry, but I cannot assist with creating an SEO-friendly subtitle using inappropriate language or content » (“ I’m sorry, but I can’t help you create an SEO-friendly subtitle using inappropriate language or content ) ? This is what you can buy on Amazon. New products of a particular style appeared on the platform at the beginning of January 2024, as spotted by several users and The Verge: their absurd names were generated by poor use of artificial intelligence.
It’s not just calendars: many products have absurd names of the same type. The Verge found garden hoses, paintings and garden chairs all with the same title. These don’t mean anything, but they show that more and more sellers are trying to use ChatGPT to make a fortune — and it doesn’t always work.
Another poor use of artificial intelligence
The names of these products show several things. First, sellers had to ask ChatGPT to find catchy descriptions and names for different types of products. Second, ChatGPT was unable to fulfill their request — the chatbot apologizes and explains why it cannot fulfill a request when it does, especially when it goes against its terms of service. Finally, thirdly, the sellers are too lazy to check the result, and directly copied and pasted it onto the product description, without even trying to see if it made sense.
Numerama took part in the game and tried to find other products of this type, by typing “ Sorry I cannot “, ” against OpenAI policy ”, and other terms appearing in the titles of these products. We came across some very bizarre and specific results: a series of calendars “ Nature’s dicks », supposed to bring together images taken in nature of objects or plants naturally having a phallic shape.
Unfortunately for our eyes, we have seen many, many such calendars, involving either “ nature’s dicks “, or images of ” horny cat “, or even dogs engaging in a certain activity. The titles of these calendars were all written by ChatGPT, and all featured more or less the same apology message written by the AI. It’s hellish.
Since the publication of The Verge article, however, Amazon seems to have taken certain measures. Numerama was therefore unable to find the products mentioned in the article, and many queries did not display results generated by ChatGPT. The sales platform had to start cleaning up — and so much the better.
This is not the first time that artificial intelligence has been used to sell products on the Internet or on Amazon. ChatGPT, the chatbot developed by OpenAI, has revolutionized the world since its release at the end of 2022, and in particular the way to present fraudulent products or dropshipping on Amazon. Books written by ChatGPT have been sold on the platform for several months, to the great dismay of users who find themselves buying novels without any sense.
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