I don’t see any use case for this retailer outside of doing scummy shit.
Roughly enough items isn’t the latest crap since a couple years. Most modern versions use JEI
There isn’t an executive suite around that isn’t cheering for AI despite not one single fucking person knowing anything about it.
It’s such disgusting hype and idiocy. Largely because there isn’t any anti-AI media or organization. By default AI has media hegemony.
They also are represented by the same law firm who Amazon, musk and trader Joe’s use who are suing to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional, attempting to remove a small, occasional road bump of worker accountability on the road to fascism.
Companies who are supposed to sell tents and canoe paddles, when they think workers are not important, when their entire model is based on outsourced production of cheaply produced, massively overpriced goods, also is the kind of org that doesn’t know what isn’t important.
Like AI slop for a retailer.
REI isn’t who they hype themselves to be.
So now they probably want to use GenAI to create hype shots, fake reviews, review summaries, and “improve efficiencies” that are so far from their original mission you can’t see it from there.
But REI is a LONG ways from being the co-op sort of place they used to pretend to be. Now they just resell cheaply manufactured trash.
Why the fuck
Wel… Fuck REI
I literally can’t even imagine what REI thinks they need AI for
REI is no longer a co-op and has caught Big Business Brain and is now on the Quest To Make More Money, which ironically (or perhaps not, given the types of clientele they’ve historically attracted) is in the process of tanking them. Fuck 'em. I quit shopping there years ago, when this happened.
Christ… I had no idea about that.
Did they actually stop being a co-op?
Functionally, yes. I mean, they probably stopped being a true co-op going on for a decade ago or more. But they finally neutered their membership rewards program so much that any vestige of an allusion to any manner of cooperative structure is now totally gone. You can’t cash out your rewards anymore, they’re only usable as company scrip now, and they expire.
Wow. I got like a lifetime membership ages ago, I didn’t know about that, thank you for filling me in a bit. That fuckin sucks shit.
Someone mentioned recruiting but honestly I’d assume review analysis/highlights. Thats generally what I see retailers do with it
At least amazon seperates it into categories and lets you see some of the reviews in question in case that attribute is especially important to you. I’d much rather that than just being told whether it’s a good product- a system with clearly no conflicts of interest that will never be used for harm, obviously.
Eh, I could see it. Instead of taking pictures of each individual article of clothing for the website, have AI generate them.
“Columbia Sportswear Jacket in Blue”
“Columbia Sportswear Jacket in Red”
“Columbia Sportswear Jacket in Green”
“Columbia Sportswear Jacket in Orange”Not much different from what retailers have been doing with Photoshop for years and years.
How hard is it to take pictures of the individual colors. I hate that photoshop recoloring that companies do. I know many have been doing it for ages, but damn, just take a picture of the thing you want me to spend money on. It’s just more ways they cut corners and offer a worse service.
If you’re talking about 1 jacket in 4 colors, it’s not a big deal. Shit, I could do that.
But if you’re talking about 10,000 products in 12 colors? Yeah, much bigger deal.
The companies that have 10k products can afford to photograph them all. Maybe it’s not important to you personally, but I’m not sure why people are willing to accept a worse service for the same or more money. I want to see how a pattern falls on a garment. Plenty of large companies are able to provide that service just fine. Other companies will cut that corner because their customers don’t care and it won’t affect their bottom line. I understand that’s the way things happen, I just think it’s not in consumers best interest to be comfortable having main properties of the product they are purchasing digitally altered.
They can afford to, but when it’s time to update your site or app for the fall line, do you have the time to do it?
I mean, I guess you could crowdsource it, or require the manufacturers to supply the images.
This almost certainly isn’t REI, this is whatever recruiting company they use for hiring.I misunderstood what I was looking at!
REI has to put in the request and this is directly in their site.
