Abstract:
Musk, the world’s richest man, has a new conflict with Amazon founder Bezos. According to user feedback, Amazon is blocking Grok Bots from placing orders. Grok Bot is a personal artificial intelligence agent launched by xAI that can perform tasks set by users on various applications, including placing orders and returns on shopping websites. However, Amazon has always maintained an unwelcoming attitude towards such third-party agents, including Meta's Muse, which has also been denied access.
Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, previously stated on
Musk was more outspoken, responding at X that perhaps he should start a company to compete with Amazon. He also suggested to Grok Bot users to place orders on other platforms.
This comment may imply that Musk is considering setting up an e-commerce platform, but it may also just be a mockery of Amazon.
The boundaries of AI agents
The competition between Musk and Bezos has always been fierce. In addition to the Grok Bot controversy, Musk's SpaceX is also competing with Bezos' Blue Origin in the space field. SpaceX's Starlink Internet is also chasing each other with Amazon's Leo satellite network.
If Musk really wants to start a company that competes with Amazon in e-commerce, the battleground between the two billionaires will stretch from heaven to earth.
At the same time, the access rights of artificial intelligence agents to major platforms have increasingly become a sensitive topic. When Amazon banned Muse, it pointed out in a statement that third-party shopping applications should operate openly and respect the service provider's decision on whether to participate. Meta had not notified Amazon of this matter before, and this behavior has problems such as leaking customer information.
Amazon also filed lawsuits against Google and OpenAI's artificial intelligence assistants, and also separately sued Perplexity's AI assistant Comet, but the latter lawsuit brought a major legal setback to Amazon. The U.S. court pointed out that banning Comet would harm consumers' right to choose and unnecessarily restrict the development of an emerging technology.
Unlike Amazon, Spotify announced in September that all of its online stores would welcome artificial intelligence agents.
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