That wasn't really alarming to me, "Likely reads diverse literary fiction." Nice.

But what _was_ alarming was this persistent banner on the page: "Your other AI assistants have learned about you. Bring that knowledge here for an even more personalized experience."

Okay...so let's click *Import* and see what this is all about...

Step 1: Copy [prompt](https://gist.github.com/jenh/dcad304585e23fccc50ac514bc3605c...).

(!!!)

Step 2: Log into your AI assistant and paste it in.

(?!, okay, let's see what we get...)

Step 3: Paste AI assistant's response. Submit the response from your AI assistant below. We will remember the information you share to improve your experience across Amazon services. *To protect your privacy, we may not save all of the information you submit.*

How about...don't do this at all, or at the very least, please ask users to review the returned response for things they might not want to share with Amazon.

What a strange, hokey, non-vetted, and privacy-violating feature...

Yet I keep getting ads in Spanish on Amazon Prime video and nobody in our household understands that language. We don't listen to Mexican polka music or watch telenovelas with subtitles, we don't have Spanish-speaking help, there is literally zero Spanish in our house. And it's not Spanish-only ads, it's usually big telco (T-Mobile now, some other before) or car ads, which sometimes run in English version. The list at the link is primarily a collection of the random facts from reviews for me, so it knows a lot about my cats but not much about me. Feel pretty comfy if this is the SOTA of adtech.

"About you

We haven't saved anything yet. As you shop on Amazon or chat with Alexa, we'll save helpful information to personalise your experience.

Once we have saved some details, you can manage them here."

I've had that account since ... well, I can see orders back to 2011.

Interestingly it said absolutely nothing about all the sex toys and fetish clothing I buy. Something tells me this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Wow, that is wild.

"Is an expert at making pasta salad"

I am pretty good. I forgot I got those ingredients at WF. I guess it liked that recipe.

I pulled that info from a full export of my Amazon data and...

"Customer indicated they are currently in the Pacific Ocean" - "Amazon has medium confidence in the validity of this memory"

Well, then. I guess trying to break Alexa for Shopping by telling it I was in the middle of the English Channel really broke my "about you".

I also had managed to update my About You in weird ways - I got it to accept some kind of variant of "is a gold rewards subscriber of Jeff's Benzos powered by PillPack" and it agreed that was a valid service when I later asked it and guardrailed itself at the same time:

https://i.ibb.co/Fkh94dv9/photo-2026-08-24-11-22-27.jpg

Holy heck.

> Systematically completes series once started

> Likely listens to music or audio content with critical attention

Which would shed all those grand visions from tech tycoons about a fully UBI-financed "pure consumer" economy in a different light: "We couldn't care less about jobs, but guinea pigs - we need lots of those!"

You're diluting responsibility with this comparison and it doesn't help.

You're trying to compare the people who actively build and support these platforms knowing full well what they're doing, with the people who go to vote for lower taxes or more jobs... oh and this hidden lobby agreement to not hurt gambling platforms. If you as a voter think these two things are at the same level by all means, call yourself a shitstain and I won't get in your way.

But nobody votes on these matters, they just come bundled (and hidden for 99.99% of people) under the broad political agenda of a handful of elected representatives who mostly focus their platform on economy, military, etc. not betting sites. This isn't any candidate's platform header. The voter is at best ignorant to these hidden issues. And even if voters did vote on this directly, it's not an obligation for anyone to actively support and contribute.

People choose to build and support platforms which are 100% harmful for anyone but themselves and the shareholders. And they should be chastised. They're free to build whatever fits their moral values, we should all be allowed to criticize according to ours even if you think the blame should be spread across 150 million voters for whatever reason.

> Automatic weapons ban lifted

Weirdly, you still have a ban on sniper rifles and on AP rounds.

I've always wondered if you could solve most of the negatives by imposing a "money in per year" limit on online gambling. Let's say, you can only transfer in 1000 dollars per year or something; maybe it's a federal limit tracked to your SSN or required to be declared on your tax forms or something. You can of course transfer OUT as much money as you win, and carry over any earnings to next year without affecting the limit. But aside from people for whom 1000 dollars a year is a huge deal, you avoid the worst harms. The people who benefit the most and eventually become disproportionately represented in the pool are superforcasters who can consistently turn a profit by being smarter and better at predicting stuff than everybody else.

An idealized prediction market could be a social good the same way a frictionless spherical cow is good for making my physics homework easier.

There is no way to remove the incentive for people with the ability to alter the events being bet on. Insider trading is generally considered a bad thing for the stock market because of the non symmetrical information for everyone trading but all of sudden in the past few years a cohort of people(rationalists) have found it virtuous

Prediction market is undistinguishable from unregulated gambling in literally all its aspects.

>The issue is that our economic system is coercive. You need a job.

That's hardly the problem of the economic system, and more of a underlying problem with the the universe (ie. entropy and all).

> This falls under the umbrella of "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism".

No it doesn't. There is a time and place for the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" mantra, but increasingly (as is the case with your comment) it is being deployed as piece of whataboutism to distract from clearly unethical behavior by implying it is no worse than anything else. There's actually a massive difference between businesses which have complicated tradeoffs in the means of delivering what is basically a social good, and facilitating sports gambling, a negative-sum activity which ruins people's lives for basically no upside whatsoever.

(It's deeply ironic that a slogan originally coined by socialists has found its most use by capitalists trying to get off the hook for their actions, but I guess most rebellious anti-establishment sentiments are ultimately co-opted for profitable ends.)

Your moral compass seems to be very close to some very powerful magnets

You’re setting up lots of straw men here but it’s not a complicated argument.

Most people feel this is deeply wrong at a gut level and I agree with them. Targeting and squeezing addicts is not moral behaviour.

Do any of these industries maintain dossiers on the psychological fault lines of their victims so they can screw them out of extra cash until they're either insane, bankrupt, or both?

Heck no. This is a version of the slippery slope fallacy.

People can’t get addicted to practically any type of entertainment. There is a range of susceptibility to gambling, amongst “people”.

We have an extensive range of rules and regulations that apply to gambling, and to things that have odds and payout schedules.

It took a while, but eventually lootboxes in games were recognized as a blight, and regulation is addressing their impact.

Generalizing entertainment from gambling is a huge stretch.

The difference between gambling and any other compulsion or addiction is that only gambling can leave you broke and destitute in a single day, without regard for starting wealth. Maybe findom, but going completely broke is generally not the purpose.

The difference between drugs and other addictions is that (certain) drugs greatly increase the risk of death.

So I say let's divide it in two - addictions that can kill you or leave you in financial ruin in a single evening, and those that cannot.

Yes they can be, and gambling is definitely a different psychological mechanism with different financial outcomes than hobbies or collecting.

Bowling with friends?

In my state (Massachusetts), the number of people who call in to the state’s gambling problem hotline doubled after online sports books became legalized. That is, by definition, a negative effect on the public good. The net number of people seeking help for gambling problems increased by 100%.

Gambling is extractive by definition, so I’m not particularly convinced that it’s not a problem for most of the people that “enjoy” it.