Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by fantasybuilder 701 days ago
I think the issue of trust is a part of it, but not the most crippling when it comes to purchases. It's not that I don't trust Alexa is that I have no idea how to communicate what I need. There are thousands of options for any product - so which one should Alexa pick? How can I tell what sliced bread I want it to order without seeing the available options and prices?..
1 comments

That's fair. For me at least, I see those as two sides of the same coin.

If I tell my wife, "buy me toilet paper", I trust that she knows enough about me to pick a quality product. I don't need to specify details because I trust her.

If I tell Amazon, "buy me toilet paper", I wouldn't be at all surprised if I got some garbage product from a brand I've never heard of and like you said, it isn't clear what I could do to get Amazon to do something different.