Hacker News Reader

Comment by NichoPaolucci | Hacker News Reader

I have heard multiple arguments that point towards this future, where AI largely becomes "normal" technology. I'm hopeful for it. There are tons of great use cases for AI, but it absolutely should not be in... everything.

This feels similar to the timeline that lots of new technologies go through. Blockchain (put that into everything!). The internet + dot com era were probably similar as well.

Treating ANYTHING like an everything tool just seems to feel this way. There's no reason I want to use AI to buy something on Amazon. Or plan a vacation for me. I absolutely want to use AI to scan through 5000 files and find that one thing I was looking for though. Different applications.

View on HN

Shopping on Amazon is increasingly like scanning through 5000 files of very similar products at variable prices with variable options and variable delivery choices.

AI + a custom search engine - which might not use Google's metrics, or Google's sponsorship - would be a killer product.

So my prediction is that a lot of aggregator and middle man sites - like Amazon - could disappear within the next decade.

And Google might too.

An open network of independent search agents would be a gamechanger for the entire Internet.

Which is not to say this would be easy. But AI is actually well-suited to making ideas like these possible.

It would - finally - be genuine disintermediation.

Amazon already has an AI search tool via Alexa in its app, which I use to filter out products and largely buy from its suggestions now because of how good a job it does, making sure to also filter out its sponsored suggestions myself.

I almost always use Claude when shopping online, to find unknown unknowns. And I loved using Claude to plan a recent trip, instead of not bothering to plan at all because it’s so tedious. Just as a counterexample.

Since GP compared this to the dot com era, I’ll just say this all tracks

You are using Claude like people use search engines. Back then there were tons of people who said they don’t need the internet or google to buy things just like they say the same things with AI

But people don’t control the market. Once Amazon bullied their way to 50% of all retail sales people no longer had a choice. It’s all coming from the same warehouses so you might as well get the lowest price

If it’s cost effective to have an LLM operated business, that business will outcompete the ones you like until they either fold or end up looking like everybody else.

I suppose I meant more of “their” AI (Rufus?).

With your personal agent, you can use it for everything YOU want to do and I can use mine for everything I want to do.

But we both log onto Amazon and are greeted by Rufus, a stranger that I’m sure most people have no interest in using.

And maybe shopping is a bad example, but AI is getting jammed into EVERYTHING and I’m sure that’s not the end result.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com