Is Amazon (AMZN) a $10 trillion company hiding in plain sight?
2nd April 2024
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
In today’s collision between AI and our world:
Can AI be too human?
I want songs, not the “stinky” extras
In the spirit of Easter…
If that’s enough to get the egg hunt commencing, read on…
AI Collision 💥
I hope you had a fun long weekend. Whether you’re religious or not, pretty much everyone gets the Friday and the Monday off over the Easter weekend.
For our household it was an Easter egg hunt and then building a lot of Hot Wheels tracks – weirdly a rainy weekend down here in Portugal.
That also means the boys have been inside and keeping a two- and five-year old occupied on a rainy day…well it takes some work.
Thankfully we’ve been doing some more space research. If they can’t find it in their books, then we turn to and ask Copilot.
And Copilot (in the settings adjusted Australian voice) is very helpful in answering our questions.
For example, did you know the centre of a black hole is at or near absolute zero, but its event horizon is scorchingly hot!?
That’s not the only AI tech we’ve been playing with this weekend either.
And what’s interesting about the other thing we’ve been testing out is that it’s as close to human AI that I’ve come across…ever.
If you’ve read my work here at AI Collision for a while, from time to time we introduce new AI tools that you can test and try yourself.
Things like ChatGPT, and Gemini, Copilot, Facebook’s music generator, Claude, and others I’ve now forgotten about.
(Note: this gets me thinking about a question I want to ask in a poll…which I’ll include that in today’s poll section later check that out below.)
But this weekend I’ve been talking with what I consider to be the most natural and realistic AI I’ve ever interacted with. Is so good, it’s almost too human for my liking.
And that’s saying something because I’ve interacted with a lot of AI out there.
It’s called HumeAI. And you can go to their demo site now and see it and test it for yourself. You just have to let it access your microphone so it can hear you and then talk to it.
Head here to check it out,
I won’t say much more than that because I want you to experience it for yourself.
Admittedly you will know that you’re interacting with AI because you know you’re going to a demo site to interact with AI. But when you try it, look at what it’s analysing, and think about if you had come across this voice, this “person” in a setting like a call centre conversation, would you know it was AI or not?
Now here’s the thing, Hume AI can be “plugged into” all kinds of AI chat bots.
Which gets me thinking, who moves first on a company like this, with the technology they’re building around emotive AI?
My take is this kind of advanced emotive AI is right up the street of a company like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
They are one of the biggest companies in the world that has successfully integrated AI customer service agents into their organisation.
If you’ve ever needed to refund, return or replace an item through their e-commerce site, there’s a good chance you’ve already interacted with their AI.
It’s good, easy, effective. But what it was to get better? What if you could speak to a “person” not just for customer services, but to also learn more about a product you might be looking to buy?
Think about it like going into a virtual shop and getting personalised assistance there and then to help you in your purchasing decision making.
I think that’s the direction Amazon heads with their AI customer services. And if you think about them integrating emotive AI, like Hume AI, that reality likely appears closer than further away.
Then…start to think what that looks like if Amazon rolls it out through their entire AWS platform, and through AWS partners as a bolt on to their offering through that part of the business.
Very quickly that domination of AWS I think levels up again.
And as crazy as it might be to think of the next milestone for these big tech companies being $10 trillion, maybe it’s not that wild an idea.
And if anyone has a chance to mainline it to $10 trillion, perhaps with integration of more human-like AI, it’s Amazon that gets there first?
Either way, I think Hume AI is a game changer. And it demonstrates again the speed of progress in the AI world.
For now, I suggest checking it out, testing it for yourself, and let me know what you think in the comments below.
AI gone wild 🤪
Speaking of Amazon and AI, while the future might be bright if they can harness the power of more human-like AI, it’s also fair to say that right now, some parts of their sojourn into AI isn’t as rosy as we might hope…
At my house when it’s time for my boys to go to bed we put on a tidy up song, they tidy up, then we put on a song they like, they dance, then we head in for showers, stories and bed.
The other night it was time to tidy up, so I said to Alexa,
“Alexa play Panama by Van Halen.”
(Yes, that’s our tidy up song, not my choice, but my boys chose it…long story).
Alexa responded, “playing Panama by Van Halen, 2015 remaster from Sam’s Spotify.”
And she proceeded to play the song as the boys tidied up.
So far…so good.
Then when that was done, they said to me, “Dad play Baddadan by Chase & Status!”
Again, this was none of my doing (but I suspect they heard it first through my wife’s playlist in the car).
It’s their favourite song right now and they go nuts when it comes on.
So, I said to Alexa, “Alexa play Baddadan by Chase & Status.”
At first Alexa did nothing. I asked again. This time she responded with, “Shuffling Baddadan by Chase & Status radio from Amazon music.” and then proceeded to play a different song than that requested.
I asked again.
This time Alexa responded with, “unable to play songs by artist requested. To play songs subscribe to Amazon Music, would you like to subscribe to Amazon Music?”
I said no.
This back and forth trying to get Alexa to play just one song went on for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile the boys were getting annoyed. And so was I.
This never used to be a problem with Alexa. I had linked my Spotify account to the Alexa app and could play any song I wanted from Spotify.
Now, every time I ask Alexa for something she tries to coerce me into paying for something, buying something or subscribing to something I don’t want to.
Take for example (as crude as this is, it’s a real example) when my boys also discovered that Alexa plays fart sounds. #Dadlife problems
“Alexa do a wet sloppy fart,” yells my five-year-old…
💩💨 Alexa does exactly what she’s asked.
The boys continue to ask for other kinds of 💨sounds.
Alexa complies…
Until she doesn’t, and then refuses to play anymore of those sounds until we subscribe to the “extreme farts extension pack.”
Shocked was my first response.
Before I can regain composure my boys yell “YES!” for the subscription, as I try and yell “NO!” from across the room.
Luckily, I had switched on a voice passcode for purchases some time ago. Phew!
But all this trying to sell me stuff I don’t need has become annoying. It got so bad, that I’ve got rid of Alexa and now just connect my phone via bluetooth to a Bose speaker I’ve got instead.
The boys call for Alexa, but Alexa is no more.
Alexa is now banished from my house.
The problem is that to start with, it was great. It was new, novel and actually worked for intended purpose.
But now, it’s trying to flog me stuff I don’t need.
Amazon also isn’t the only one guilty of this. I had the same problem with my PDFs of late.
I don’t even know how this happened, I used to just open PDF documents with Preview on my Mac.
Now they open through Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE). It somehow became the default application for PDFs. Now I have to log into Adobe to view any PDF. What’s more before I can view it, it tries to get me to subscribe to more Adobe services. And then I can’t close the window that I have to log in with, it just won’t let me close it.
I’m STUCK, TRAPPED, big tech has me once again in a stranglehold!
Adobe is big tech too although they don’t come to mind when you think of the giants of tech. But Adobe’s current market cap is $226 billion!
They might not have seen triple digit gains in the last year like a lot of big tech, but they’re still 30% up on the rolling year which for a $226 billion company is outstanding.
And you bet that even a company like Adobe is going full throttle at AI services too. In a recent interview, Adobe’s CEO even said,
“The momentum behind AI-powered initiatives is palpable across all segments of our business,”
“Whether it’s enhancing document workflows, empowering creatives, or personalizing customer experiences, AI is a game-changer with immense potential.”
Adobe is quick to move for such a big company too. Early on with ChatGPT, one of the novel approaches when people could start building their own GPTs was the explosion of PDF generative AI tools. That meant being able to upload a PDF and have the AI summarise it and extract the key information and insight.
Now, Adobe does it all within their suite of products. Their generative AI means that you can,
“Interact with your document in the desktop or web app for quick answers and one-click summaries. Then use those insights to create impactful content and level up your productivity.”
And yes, if you want it, you need to subscribe to it…
How long before I need to subscribe to their generative AI just to then view a PDF?
Alexa wants to sell me a subscription to everything. Adobe wants me to subscribe to everything. They will/are both integrating AI at a rate of knots which will initially be helpful no doubt, but then…I’ll need to subscribe to that too to continue to use it.
I get the subscription model, and it is useful, but somewhere along the line I just want to exist in an AI world where when I want to upgrade it’s my initiative, not AI making that call for me.
The problem we face with AI is that unless we’re aware of the direction we head, it may very well end up like the internet. At the control and command…and commercialisation of big tech. When it comes to such a powerful technology like AI, that’s a little scary.
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) up 43%
iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) up 4%
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOD) up 2%
Bust 📉
C3.ai (NASDAQ:AI) down 4%
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) down 2%
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 1%
From the hive mind 🧠
The idea of Stargate being opened means some futuristic Egyptian(ish) aliens breaking through an alternative dimension wormhole and invading earth. For Microsoft and OpenAI it means a $100 billion super-AI data centre. Or maybe the latter leads to the former? Either way, the AI wars are just getting started!
I’ve been saying AI is going to shape this election cycle, and likely future elections. That will come domestically and internationally. As you will see here, the AI propaganda has already started to get going.
I’ll answer the question to this headline succinctly. No. AI will however change how our devices operate and in the future, it will change the industrial design of them too. Just not anytime soon.
Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️
I’ve not yet collated the results of our poll from last week about whether you’d choose Dell or Super Micro if it came down to a choice between the two.
I think I’ll give you a few more days to respond.
And while you respond to that, I’m going to ask another question and then deliver the results of both on Thursday!
That’s because I want to know…
Hume.AI and their demo site is just one of the many tools available to test and try. So why not have them all in one easy to reach place?
Let me know if you would like that, and I’ll get it done, host it here on our Substack and point to it regularly so you can find it and check it out.
Weirdest AI image of the day
It’s HIS holiday you long-eared furry rat – r/Weirddallee
ChatGPT’s random quote of the day
"The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do." – B.F. Skinner, psychologist and author.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
I hate what Adobe (pdf) and Amazon are doing too. But isn't it inevitable that tech giants are going to continually (and increasingly) try to upsell us and "push" us into subscribing? They're all desperately trying to keep growing exponentially and trying to achieve (and maintain) competitive advantage. AI integration is likely to make this even more common, don't you think?
$AMZN continues to be like a money printing press for options traders! 🚀📈