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Consumer apprehension grows as US retailers adopt AI-assisted pricing tools

U.S. consumers aren’t just frustrated with high prices. They’re angry and confused about the increasingly high-tech ways that restaurant chains and major retailers are setting those prices.

Digital price tags are rapidly replacing paper ones in grocery aisles. Artificial intelligence tools help businesses decide what to charge by predicting how customers might respond. Terms like “dynamic pricing” and “surveillance pricing” are stirring anxiety on social media, where users wonder if different people are getting different prices for the same product.

Americans have grown accustomed to changing prices when booking flights, hotel rooms and rides, but the prospect of everyday spending shaped by algorithms they don’t understand and personal data they may not realize they’re sharing has touched a nerve.

Consumer apprehension grows as US retailers adopt AI-assisted pricing toolshttps://apnews.com/article/ai-prices-dynamic-customers-technology-64c446cd117d3be664de4ab570fb9857Open linkView original on lemmy.world
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13 replies

lemmy.world

If it’s really “AI-assisted” it’s gonna be fun when it malfunctions. Will the store honor that pricing when the steak rings up for a penny?

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frongtreply
lemmy.zip

Yup. In a lot of states, retailers are required by law to honor the lowest advertised price.

17

No DA would even prosecute that. It may technically be the law but it is not in effect

2

Nope; they’ll adopt the “casino” model where a major win was really a machine malfunction.

11

Hell no they won’t. It’s America, the customer is always fucked.

7

It's not AI in the LLM sense that's prone to fault.

1
piefed.ca

Americans are apprehensive, yet these shit-filled businesses are doing it anyway. This tracks.

19

Of course they do it, because everyone does it and the customers have no choice but to shop somewhere.

Americans always rile on about how the "free market" will nix bad ideas as people take their business elsewhere... But how tf do you vote with your wallet when every single option does the same?

7

Those electronic tags have been in Europe for a while. The issue in the US appears to be less those tags and more the lack of consumer and data protection. If for example prices are allowed to change once per day amd must not be changed based on individualised surveillence, abuse potential of these digital price tags is somewhat limited.

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Consumer apprehension grows as US retailers adopt AI-assisted pricing tools | Spyke