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AI is rapidly becoming the new storefront. Instead of scrolling through pages of search results, more shoppers are asking AI assistants to recommend products, compare prices and narrow down options. But a new report argues that those same AI systems may also be quietly shaping what consumers never see.Researchers at Columbia Law School's Center for Law and the Economy have published a report accusing Amazon and Walmart of using their AI shopping assistants in ways that make American-made products harder to find, despite the systems appearing capable of identifying them.The report, Made in America, Hidden by AI, examined how Amazon's and Walmart's AI shopping tools responded to questions about products made in the United States. According to the researchers, Amazon's chatbot often declined to answer straightforward questions about American-made products while readily answering equivalent questions about products manufactured in China. After rephrasing the same request, however, the chatbot returned American-made products using information that had been available all along."We tested these systems the way an engineer would, and the refusals fell apart under basic testing," Erie Meyer, senior fellow at the Center for Law and the Economy and one of the report's authors, said. "The data was there, but the design was built to hide it."
