3 ms·

I feel like the "rise of the machines" won't be some bloodbath with terminators or AI killing people outright, it will just be that everything will be a Kafka-e

by dsnuh 8y ago

I feel like the "rise of the machines" won't be some bloodbath with terminators or AI killing people outright, it will just be that everything will be a Kafka-esque maze of bureaucratic complexity with no human recourse when you get caught in the system. It's like those Coke Freestyle machines, where you get stuck in line behind someone trying to figure out the touchscreen system when all you want to do is get a Coke. The future of society is all of us frustratedly waving our hands in front of an automated paper towel dispenser before we just give up and wipe our hands on our pants.

danielvf 8y ago
And yet, it's not technology that does this. It's the inherent nature of systems, and has been around for a long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk
- jandrese 8y ago
  At times it seems the whole point of bureaucracy is to empower people to say "no" even in cases where the complainant has a valid case. You save money by nickles and dimes by forcing people to be a slave to the process and not allow any pesky sense of justice or empathy to impact their moneymaking performance.
temp-dude-87844 8y ago
This is already the case. Much of the adult condition consists of trying to prove one's case to bureaucracies: why you shouldn't have incurred that overdraft, why you shouldn't have been denied that insurance claim, why you think there's a mistake on your bill -- and merely getting a human on the phone isn't sufficient to resolve your issue. You should also come armed with ample documentation (which you may not even have) to support your case, and be prepared to set aside a chunk of time as you bounce from department to department. This is part of why money-poor and time-constrained people have such terrible outcomes: each mistake hurts more in proportion, they lack the funds to hire an expert (e.g. tax professional, lawyer), and they're constrained on time to deal with offices that are only open for less than a quarter of the week. There's a march towards more automation, more externally-opaque algorithms, and less humans to escalate to, but the core of the problem is quite old. Instead of a polite-if-flustered customer service representative telling you they don't know, you need to speak to someone else, you'll have to scrape the secret number from a 3-year-old reddit post or publicly shame them on Twitter to get answers, but the outcome's the same: the better-equipped and loudest voices win, while there's a bunch of others who get shafted with no recourse. Eventually, you quietly learn to keep thorough records, emergency savings, and eat the loss, because unless you can fight these sorts of issues in a higher forum where damages are an option, fighting them more than two roundtrips deep isn't worth your time.
- anitil 8y ago
  I've spent a lot of time trying to come up with a business case for this problem. Something like : 'For $x I will call your bank/real estate agent/local council/supplier and sort out $problem. If I don't solve it, you don't pay'. Somewhere between a lawyer and a PA. But I couldn't get around the privacy implications - I'd need all your passwords, birth dates etc and would need to either certify myself as your agent, or pretend to be you. Edit: dizzystar and other below actually do just this thing for dealing with Amazon
- 20after4 8y ago
  Reminds me of the classic tool track featuring 10 minutes of automated phone system hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cem5PEF9Bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cem5PEF9Bs
clumsysmurf 8y ago
One of the things that frightens me most is Google Hire. What happens if for some reason it filters you out from everything? Kafka-esque can permanently ruin your life.
- dsnuh 8y ago
  Imagine the multi-dimensional cross-checked ML driven future of credit reporting. You go in to apply for a home loan... "We see here that you missed a payment on your car loan in January, yet we also see from your trending posts that during that month you spent an estimated $408.34 on non-essential expenses during the same period based on your mapped locations. I'm afraid we cannot offer you anything at this time."
  - briandear 8y ago
    Or the flip side where you benefit because the system understands your actual risk profile rather than being at the mercy of highly error-prone credit reporting. I had 5 tax liens on my credit from the state of Missouri, despite never living there or operating a business there. It took me a year and a lawsuit against Experian before that was fixed. And this is despite having documents from the Missouri courts discharging the liens and certifying They were imposed in error.
briandear 8y ago
Sounds like a visit to every French government office to which I’ve ever been subjected to.

by dsnuh 8y ago

danielvf 8y ago

And yet, it's not technology that does this. It's the inherent nature of systems, and has been around for a long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk

jandrese 8y ago
At times it seems the whole point of bureaucracy is to empower people to say "no" even in cases where the complainant has a valid case. You save money by nickles and dimes by forcing people to be a slave to the process and not allow any pesky sense of justice or empathy to impact their moneymaking performance.

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

This is already the case. Much of the adult condition consists of trying to prove one's case to bureaucracies: why you shouldn't have incurred that overdraft, why you shouldn't have been denied that insurance claim, why you think there's a mistake on your bill -- and merely getting a human on the phone isn't sufficient to resolve your issue. You should also come armed with ample documentation (which you may not even have) to support your case, and be prepared to set aside a chunk of time as you bounce from department to department. This is part of why money-poor and time-constrained people have such terrible outcomes: each mistake hurts more in proportion, they lack the funds to hire an expert (e.g. tax professional, lawyer), and they're constrained on time to deal with offices that are only open for less than a quarter of the week. There's a march towards more automation, more externally-opaque algorithms, and less humans to escalate to, but the core of the problem is quite old. Instead of a polite-if-flustered customer service representative telling you they don't know, you need to speak to someone else, you'll have to scrape the secret number from a 3-year-old reddit post or publicly shame them on Twitter to get answers, but the outcome's the same: the better-equipped and loudest voices win, while there's a bunch of others who get shafted with no recourse. Eventually, you quietly learn to keep thorough records, emergency savings, and eat the loss, because unless you can fight these sorts of issues in a higher forum where damages are an option, fighting them more than two roundtrips deep isn't worth your time.

anitil 8y ago
I've spent a lot of time trying to come up with a business case for this problem. Something like : 'For $x I will call your bank/real estate agent/local council/supplier and sort out $problem. If I don't solve it, you don't pay'. Somewhere between a lawyer and a PA. But I couldn't get around the privacy implications - I'd need all your passwords, birth dates etc and would need to either certify myself as your agent, or pretend to be you. Edit: dizzystar and other below actually do just this thing for dealing with Amazon
20after4 8y ago
Reminds me of the classic tool track featuring 10 minutes of automated phone system hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cem5PEF9Bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cem5PEF9Bs

clumsysmurf 8y ago

One of the things that frightens me most is Google Hire. What happens if for some reason it filters you out from everything? Kafka-esque can permanently ruin your life.

dsnuh 8y ago
Imagine the multi-dimensional cross-checked ML driven future of credit reporting. You go in to apply for a home loan... "We see here that you missed a payment on your car loan in January, yet we also see from your trending posts that during that month you spent an estimated $408.34 on non-essential expenses during the same period based on your mapped locations. I'm afraid we cannot offer you anything at this time."
- briandear 8y ago
  Or the flip side where you benefit because the system understands your actual risk profile rather than being at the mercy of highly error-prone credit reporting. I had 5 tax liens on my credit from the state of Missouri, despite never living there or operating a business there. It took me a year and a lawsuit against Experian before that was fixed. And this is despite having documents from the Missouri courts discharging the liens and certifying They were imposed in error.

briandear 8y ago

Sounds like a visit to every French government office to which I’ve ever been subjected to.