With more money flowing into AI development than ever before, web browsers powered by autonomous “AI agents” are hitting the market like crazy. One of the most popular is Comet, offered by the startup Perplexity.
Though Comet promises to organize your emails, summarize webpages, and automate your searches, it’s not without some glaring ethical and security flaws.
And if you are reckless enough to use it for some online shopping, not even the world’s largest online retailer supports it. According to Bloomberg, Amazon is now taking legal action to prevent Perplexity’s Comet from browsing its wares on behalf of users. The e-commerce giant recently sent a scathing cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity, accusing it of “computer fraud” in violation of Amazon’s terms of service.
The legal notice also accused Perplexity of degrading the “Amazon shopping experience” and injecting privacy weak points into the shopping platform, anonymous sources told Bloomberg.
Not content to let Amazon have the final word, Perplexity clapped back against the tech giant in a blog post titled “Bullying is Not Innovation.”
“The point of technology is to make life better for people. We call it innovation, but it’s just the constant process of asking how to make things better,” the Perplexity team wrote. “Bullying, on the other hand, is when large corporations use legal threats and intimidation to block innovation and make life worse for people.”
Perplexity’s post accused Amazon CEO Andy Jassy of prioritizing ads, sponsored results, and customer manipulation.
“Amazon wants to eliminate user rights so that it can sell more ads right now and partner with AI agents designed to take advantage of users later,” the company scolded. “It’s not just bullying, it’s bonkers.”
Jealousy is another likely explanation. The spat comes as Amazon rolls out it’s “Buy for Me” service, a proprietary AI agent that shops the site on behalf of users. According to Amazon, the Buy for Me agent can also search for branded items offered elsewhere on the web through Amazon’s site, an effort to make the platform a one-stop shop for just about anything sold on the web.
This push into automated shopping agents is part of a much larger trend, and one critics warn is fraught with risk. As Tech Policy Press observed, the rise of AI agents likely comes with a cascade of unintended consequences, like threats to personal data privacy and loss of control, not to mention complex ethical and policy dilemmas for society as a whole.
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