alt Hacker News> No one is shopping for clothes using AI
Tangental rebuttal, but I shop for food using AI every day. Grab app (Asia's equivalent of Uber Eats/DoorDash) has an option "Translate using AI". It (attempts to) translate dishes and ingredients. The app gives a prominent warning (in corporate speak): "these AI translations can be horrendously bad" - and some translations are indeed way off (often hilariously!) but although scrappy, this AI feature is incredibly useful.
Before this feature, I'd have to laboriously screenshot (since you can't select text in most delivery apps on iOS) then open the screenshot in Google Translate. This only gets you one screen's worth of translations making browsing too arduous.
A shitty AI feature that actually solves a problem is great, whereas a polished AI feature that doesn't is "gross" :)
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That's not really "shopping using AI" in any meaningful sense. Or at least it's not in the same spirit as what's being discussed.
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At the risk of going slightly tangential here...
> since you can't select text in most delivery apps on iOS
This is all you need to know about mobile to understand we're in a complete duopoly that desperately needs a modern "ma bell" style breakup.
The fuckers who make these devices have zero interest in allowing you to do anything other than spend money with them, of which they will take their cut.
The whole thing feels optimized for trapping users, not enabling them.