Did you know Amazon has an AI assistant? Called Rufus, it’s apparently existed since February, but it recently became available for everyone. By “available,” I mean it shows up without you asking and won’t go away, which is a shame, because it really, really sucks.
Rufus shows up as a list of AI-generated questions and answers on the left side of my screen when I’m browsing Amazon. Amazon says it’s supposed to “help you make better shopping decisions,” in part by summarizing customer reviews, themselves already summarized by AI, and also searchable by keyword, and also searchable by customer ratings that give you a broad overview of what customers think of a product. But anyway: there’s a bot now!
Rufus provides a list of questions someone at Amazon thinks you might have about a product and need help answering. It’s quite the insight into what Amazon thinks of your reading comprehension: for instance, I first noticed Rufus while looking at books of ukulele tabs. For a book called 20 Practice Routines For Fingerstyle Ukulele: A structured set of technique exercises for high G and low G ukulele, Rufus thinks I might ask “Do these routines include notation for high G and low G?” and “Are there fingerpicking patterns included in the routines?” How would I ever have figured that out without AI? Certainly not by... reading the title of the book!
If you don’t play the ukulele (but you should), Rufus has helpful answers to other questions too. For the book Salvation on Sand Mountain, which is about the snake-handling religion, Rufus thinks you might wonder “Does this book have any religious themes?” For a book I edited, called The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, Rufus is here to help you figure out “Is this book about trans people?” Rufus surmises that it is, because “the product description states this book contains short fiction stories from transgender authors.” Most of Rufus’ suggestions include the question “Does this book come in other formats?” which on my laptop screen sits five and a half inches from the list of formats you can buy the book in.
But what about the questions you can’t answer simply by using your eyes? Well, Rufus can’t really help you there. On an upcoming fiction book called Two-Step Devil, Rufus thinks I might wonder “Does this book have any trigger warnings?” The answer: “I don’t have enough context to help with your query.” (Reminder: this was not my query! I didn’t ask for this!) For the book Nevada (which I also edited, and also which you should read), Rufus thinks I might wonder if it has discussion questions, but tells me “The product information does not mention if the book has discussion questions… Without access to the book’s contents, I cannot confirm if it includes discussion questions.” When suggesting the same question for the novel Nightbitch, Rufus adds that “Customer reviews don't mention the absence of these features, so I cannot conclusively say if they are included or not.” (Here is where I will use my Master's degree in library science: if you want to know the answer to this question, check the table of contents in the preview of the book!)
For the book Summer Fun (by a friend of mine and which dear god why haven’t you read it already), Rufus asks if the book is “easy to read,” and answers that “there is no explicit mention of the reading difficulty. Reviews do not discuss the writing style or complexity. As this is a subjective matter, I cannot provide a general opinion on whether the book is easy to read.” Do you want to know if The Collection is suitable for all ages? Rufus would like you to know that “I cannot recommend books for specific age groups. If you have any concerns about the content of this book, I would suggest consulting with a librarian or bookseller who can provide guidance on age-appropriate material.”
Let’s recap: Rufus can confidently answer basic questions clearly answered by the description of a product, but not any questions not covered there–the kinds of questions you might actually want to ask someone. It knows enough to suggest you consult a real human about these questions– say, a bookseller or teacher or librarian, all of them underpaid, undervalued jobs, the kind AI is eager to replace. Rufus does nothing but block my screen and insult my intelligence--in the immortal words of my most popular blog, how stupid do they think we are?
Rufus is so useless and intrusive that I’m half-convinced it’s some kind of troll. But the more likely, less funny answer is that Rufus is just further proof that AI is still a hammer in search of a nail, if that hammer required the power consumption of a small nation. It does nothing but signpost that Amazon is part of the ever-more-tenuous AI bubble, the end of which cannot come soon enough.
(If you would like meaningful book recommendations and also to support your community, please go to your local bookshop or talk to a librarian. If you live in Brooklyn, the public library can recommend you books online, for free!)
