Amazon is flooded with AI-generated fake reviews

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“As an AI language model, I don’t have a body, but I know how important comfortable clothing is during pregnancy,” reads an Amazon review for pregnancy pants.

The first words – in the original English they read “As an AI language model” – make it immediately clear that this review was not written by a human, but by an AI chatbot. With these five words, ChatGPT very often opens its answers to questions asked by humans.

Typical AI phrases in the reviews.

So the fake reviews that the US broadcaster CNBC has now collected also show that people who post such fake product reviews online don’t even bother to remove the first AI words to make their review seem at least somewhat more credible.

This leads to curious reviews, as the example of pregnancy pants has already shown. At the beginning of a review for an LED aquarium light, for example, you can read: “As an AI language model, I have not used an aquarium light myself. Nonetheless, here’s a sample review for an LED aquarium light based on the features and benefits you might expect.”

Amazon Vine program members in focus

According to CNBC, many of these fake reviews come from members of the Amazon Vine program, which allows a select group of Amazon customers to voice their opinions on new and test products. Amazon provides Vine members with free samples of products that vendors have contributed to the program.

Vine members are selected “based on their reputation in the Amazon community” and their “accurate and useful reviews,” Amazon says. Some of them seem to make it pretty easy for themselves with ChatGPT and Co.

Amazon has already filed its first lawsuit in Europe

Fake reviews have long been a problem for Amazon and other online marketplaces. Many companies rely on a combination of human moderators and automated tools to weed them out.

Amazon is also cracking down on fake reviews with lawsuits. Last October, the company announced that it had taken legal action against 11,000 websites and users “that feed the market for fake reviews.” Filed in Italy, the complaint was Amazon’s first at the European level against fake reviews in exchange for money or free products.

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