Meta's Muse Used to Monopolize RealReal Listings for Hours; Site Blocks AI Agents
Published · updated · curated by AI Is Going Just Great
Source: theverge.com ↗
There is, of course, a realistic limit to how long a person is willing to spend adding and re-adding designer clothing to their shopping cart if they're indecisive. An agent in contrast does not care.
The RealReal updated its bot defenses after The Verge found that Meta's Muse could be instructed to continuously re-add luxury items to a shopping cart, exploiting the retailer's 20-minute hold system to block other shoppers from buying those items indefinitely. A human grows tired of this. An AI agent does not.
The RealReal's CTO said the site has since made it "much more difficult for all agents to log in, add items to cart, and check out." Agents can still surface listings and send users to product pages. Meta did not respond to a request for comment. Muse, meanwhile, has been downloaded by 10 million US users in 40 days, with shopping as its most common use case and average purchases above $200 — meaning this particular friction point is unlikely to be the last.