👀 Inside Amazon’s Secret Algorithm

👀 The Algorithm That Quietly Raised Prices and Generated Massive Profits for Amazon

Amazon’s secret algorithm, “Project Nessie,” raised prices on certain products, generating about $1.4 billion in additional profits over five years.

The project identified specific products for which it predicted other online stores would follow Amazon’s price increases.

When activated, this algorithm raised prices for those products and, when other stores followed suit, kept the now-higher price in place.

Amazon systematically analyzed which products and which competitors resulted in “safe” price increases, allowing it to arbitrarily raise prices and extract additional profit from customers.

Despite Amazon’s claim that the tool was intended to prevent unsustainable low prices and was scrapped several years ago, the FTC documents suggest that it was deemed an “incredible success” by Amazon and could potentially be reactivated.

📍 Grab Is Mapping Hidden Roads and Alleys in Southeast Asia

Grab, the Southeast Asian ride-hailing company, is mapping hidden roads and alleys in the region with the help of its driver-partners.

This initiative, known as GrabMaps, has become an additional income stream for many of Grab’s driver-partners who assist in data gathering. The mapping process involves flagging roads that may need updating and assigning these areas to driver-partners.

The system also detects when driver-partners deviate from the route marked on GrabMaps, indicating a potential change in the road.

Despite Southeast Asia being undermapped due to its rapid development and challenging terrain, Grab has managed to map over 900,000 km of missing roads and added these to the OpenStreetMap platform.

The company has also mapped more than 50 million points-of-interest in the region.

📰 Microsoft's AI Poll Asked Readers to Vote on Tragic Death

An ‘Insights from AI’ poll showed up next to a Guardian article about a young woman’s death syndicated on MSN, asking readers to vote on how they thought she died.

The Guardian wrote that though the poll was removed, the damage had already been done. The poll asked readers to vote on whether a woman took her own life, was murdered, or died by accident.

Five-day-old comments on the story indicate readers were upset, and some clearly believe the story’s authors were responsible, not realizing Microsoft was behind the poll.

One called it “the most pathetic, disgusting poll I’ve ever seen.”

Microsoft has since deactivated AI-generated polls for all news articles and is investigating the incident. The Guardian has called on tech companies to ensure the safe use of AI and provide transparency around their technologies.

⚡ 3 Cool Tools

🧠 What did you think of today's email?

Your feedback helps me create better emails for you! Please reply to this email and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

— Tay

p.s. if you want to sign up for the Rapid Rundown newsletter or share it with a friend or colleague, you can find us here.