a.i. descriptions are rubbish

[mr.mxyzptlk99]

So 'A.I' (so-called artificial intelligence) has found its way into ebay listings - but it's rubbish! It tells you nothing about the condition of an item, or its function - it just puts together a load of waffle based on the item specifics. Nothing 'intellegent' about it at all - just a quick fix for lazy sellers!

[toomanyparrots4]

In my entire life I've had one thing lose colour, and I buy cheap "rubbish".  And being male I don't care what colour it changes to.

[portsi33]

Totally agree with that statement,  I buy a lot of coins over 3 or 4 different ebay sites and I find the AI descriptions utter nonsense any mistake made by the seller is amplified by the AI, this coupled with the poor photographs of some items and vague replies from sellers makes me wonder who buys these's items.

From my point of view as a buyer the condition part of the description should be compulsory and not left blank as in most listings,  Circulated or Uncirculated, New or Used etc.

I don't think sellers are doing themselves any favours using AI particularly with coins, and you're right it's laziness.

[martin_katscan]

It's so ironic that the AI description completely go against the guidelines eBay themselves set for how sellers should write descriptions.

There's no useful detail, no specifics of condition etc.

I'm willing to bet they are worse than useless and are actually counter productive and harmful to sales.

I buy and sell a lot of secondhand music and music production equipment, where details and condition are really important.

Whenever I click on a listing and immediately clock one of these pointlessly vague AI descriptions I actively avoid the listing.

To me it's as much of a turn off as one of those listings that has uses someone else's existing photos and description without any edits.

I definitely wouldn't ever use an AI description in one of my listings either.

[toomanyparrots4]

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@martin_katscan wrote:

To me it's as much of a turn off as one of those listings that has uses someone else's existing photos and description without any edits.

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Those are the same person with multiple accounts, usually Chinese.

[stevenseagalisking]

Agreed. Embarrassingly awful. Absolute waffle that tells you nothing about the actual item for sale. Therefore it's not even accurate to call it a "description ". It doesn't describe the item. This is just a very sad admission that mankind is slowly dying out! 

[jonno_tt]

 How is this marked as solved?  How do we escalate this - to remove or improve the feature?

I agree the AI description feature is ridiculous to the point where it renders the description completely useless. It's frustrating for buyers and causes some fundamental problems with the function of buying and selling. As a buyer the AI description does not provide any useful information to attract interest in the listing. In my experience it actually deters potential buyers due to the lack of critical information and perceived laziness of the seller.   Another example of companies jumping on the AI 'bandwagon' without thinking about it.

To make the feature useful, it would need some guided questioning to prompt the seller to add useful information to attract buyers instead of the flowery but utterly meaningless story telling that we currently see.   

[toomanyparrots4]

You can contact Ebay directly and make suggestions, but they never listen.  They've still to fix the bug of a long address line not getting printed completely on a postage label, which I reported to them months ago.  Fine if it ends in Pa instead of Park, but if the end of the line is a number....

[iluvneighbours]

I used to use the sadly defunct Turbolister. For all it's flaws - it could be unstable at time - it was very tight when it came to ensuring certain details were entered before a listing could be uploaded.

[scorpza]

Absolutely couldn't agree more, the description forms part of the sale and therefore agreement, and a description of the goods must  e accurate and descriptive and in the sellers own words that then form part of a contract and agreement between the seller and the buyer, so i just bought something that was inaccurately described by ai, the item had been sold as used but was used and a repair attempted, ie motorbike levers bent then bent back, making them weaker, i could have done this myself but the seller enployed ai which waffled on about a whole lot of sales talk. And can ebay be contacted about it, nah.

[sp834]

When I list an item I now state "This description was written without AI so it's accurate" lf we take the easy way out and let AI write it it increases the likelihood of false statements being included in the description. This will lead to increased returns and bad feedback.