Our weird behavior during the pandemic is screwing with AI models

Anyone looking for an illustration of how rapidly shopping habits changed when covid-19 hit needed only to glance at the top 10 search terms on Amazon in the week of April 12 to 18. In place of former mainstays like phone cases, phone chargers, and Lego sets were "toilet paper," "face mask," "hand sanitizer," "paper towels," "Lysol spray," "Clorox wipes," "mask," "Lysol," "masks for germ protection," and "N95 mask." People weren't just searching; they were buying, too--and in bulk. The majority of people looking for masks ended up buying the new Amazon #1 best seller, "Face Mask, Pack of 50." Nozzle, a London-based consultancy specializing in algorithmic advertising for Amazon sellers, captured the rapid change back in February in this simple graph.