Amazon’s New AI-Generated “Podcasts” Shilling Every Imaginable Products Are Already Backfiring Spectacularly

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Companies keep forcing AI features to do things that no one ever thought they needed, or indeed ever conceived of.

In this unfortunate category, Amazon’s new feature for generating mini-podcast segments that shill for products on its shopping platform really takes the cake. 

The bizarre feature was spotlighted by Katie Notopoulos at Business Insider, who recorded the Amazon AI’s pathetic attempt of portraying an engaging discussion on just about the dumbest thing for anyone to talk about at length: adult diaper rash cream.

Imagine the most grating podcast advert in the world. Not the kind where a pre-made commercial plays, but when the hosts have been paid by a brand to talk about its product, leveraging their “authentic” personas to wax lyrical about an AI business platform or weird supplement. It’s kind of like that, but somehow vastly worse.

“Today our AI-generated shopping show is exploring the Welmedix Rapid Relief Diaper Rash Cream,” the AI host begins. “Emma, what makes this hospital-grade cream different from standard diaper rash products?”

“Well, it’s really interesting. This cream uses a dual-action approach” the co-host, “Emma,” replies, before droning on with barely repackaged marketing copy.

You can even call in with questions. When Notopoulos writes “help my butt hurts” in a chat window, the AI host responds, “Alright Katie, we’ve got you. You’re dealing with discomfort, and this cream is designed for exactly that kind of irritation. Emma, what can you tell them?”

It gets worse. Though the AI podcast feature doesn’t work on all products, someone else found that it was even willing to glaze a “fake dog poop” item.

“At four inches long, it’s sized perfectly for believability,” the chirpy AI enthuses. “The chunky texture and authentic brown coloring make it a real show-stopper.”

An Amazon spokesperson told Notopoulous that the AI “podcast” feature is “powered by several AI technologies working together, including Amazon Bedrock.” The information it uses is based on product listings and what it pulls from other online sources, they added.

Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos seems to have a predilection for faux AI podcasts (and AI in general). In December, his newspaper The Washington Post, against the wishes of staffers, launched an AI podcast feature that badly regurgitates its articles, with predictably disastrous results.

Who are these fake podcasts for? And is this really what we’re desiccating water tables, speed-running global warming, and ruining entire rural towns over? Yes, of course.

In all, Amazon’s new feature is a hellish experiment in engineering just about the most disingenuous content imaginable. But it’s also kind of funny that, gazillions of dollars into the AI boom later, we’ve reinvented the late night TV infomercial, only instead of Billy Mays yelling at you, you’re being bored to tears by a machine’s bad impersonation of a podcaster who sold their soul to their show’s sponsors years ago.

Notopoulos also saw the gallows humor in the absurd feature.

“I think it could be one of the funniest, closest endpoints to human civilization we’ve seen yet in our new AI-enabled world,” she wrote.

More on AI: If OpenAI Loses This Trial, It Could Effectively Be Eliminated in Its Current Form

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IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews