> exception that proves the rule

That's not how that works; "someone is doing this" doesn't prove a rule "no one is doing this" -- quite the opposite

"The exception that proves the rule" is for things like "closed Thursdays" (rule = open on other days), "no parking after 8 PM" (rule = parking allowed before 8 PM), "no refunds on games" (rule = refunds available on other items), etc.

It’s not an exception. People seem very short sighted when it comes to AI. Unable to think outside the box for how AI can be helpful or useful.

ChatGPT has helped me find multiple niche products and vendors. It is really good at that. Products I fruitlessly tried to find for years, ChatGPT found right away.

> I can imagine lots of cases where people with specific needs would find benefit from the “AI clothes buying” experience,

That is kind of the idea of serving the long tail. Everyone is unique, and there are a lot of everyones.

That said, I don't get online clothes shopping. The fit is 80% of the product.

I also did a bunch of shopping with AI to identify clothing recently. I was going to DC for a bunch of meetings, and did not have a good sense of what clothes are appropriate in different DC contexts. I did a bunch of iteration with AI to identify something that communicated what I intended, and then ran the final list by a friend with more context to confirm that it was indeed a readable choice.

Just in the last three weeks I cut buying an used car analysis (1-3 months usually) and a new dryer (usually at least a week) to three days total -- this is "time to shortlist" aka "any of the three remaining options will be a great choice".

Using several AI models to cut through the multidimensional sea of options.

It's not all grim, thia technology can genuinely be helpful.

AI helped me shop for some bits and tools that I needed to do my rear differential and brake fluid, and after some nudging, I also got it to do price comparisons for the tools I needed. saved me a lot of time to walk into each store with an exact list on the bits that I needed. And time with getting exactly the tool I needed without overspending.

I previously would have spent this time opening up 4 tabs on three diff hardware store sites, and an additional tab to pull up the relevant car forums for tips and advice. Which I ended up doing anyways, as well as some YouTube videos because I don't trust the results. But it still saved me a ton of time investigating and weighing out options as a decent aggregator of info.

That's fine? Especially if the AI does the searches for me, and does them more frequently than I would.

I have a half dozen facebook marketplace searches going. I used to automate craigslist searches before craigslist became irrelevant. It's nothing complicated but "AI searches for me and notifies me" is better than me remembering to look.

Uhh I don’t think you shop for clothes if you think there’s just a half dozen giant mail order clothing vendors.

Well obviously you shop for clothes, but nowhere like the way people who like clothes shop for clothes.

Finding clothes is about matching the vision in your head. If you’re the type that just buy clothes whatever, this is not a problem that exists in your world.

> I can imagine lots of cases where people with specific needs

You know, everyone used to have specific needs in clothing when I was young. Somehow fast fashion advertised that out of us to solve their own supply chain problems.

Great ideas always start with a niche. Moreover, they almost always start out looking dumb.

I will do my best to remember your opinion next time I use AI to buy clothes, but given the fact that IDGAF, it's not going to be easy.