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I am not so sure it’s only about liability. Maybe with job interviews but in other areas it’s just cheaper to have automated systems that do the rejections and

I am not so sure it’s only about liability. Maybe with job interviews but in other areas it’s just cheaper to have automated systems that do the rejections and cancellations. Having support staff that can explain and even override decisions costs money This is undesirable so it’s better to lose a few customers. I think we’re at risk of building up the ultimate faceless and inhumane bureaucracy that works well in most cases but if you have bad luck then you have no way to clarify things unless you have a lot of money for lawyers or can raise a stink on social media.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
I think that's closer to the real reason. As a culture it seems we're more and more frequently engaging in selfish "optimizations," that are really just creating or ignoring negative externalities. Corporations are especially guilty of this, given how pathologically focused they are on shareholders. Often their cost-cutting verges on customer abuse: (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513556, for an example I recently read about).
- ccsnags 7y ago
  Have you ever worked for a company and felt like most of your time was spent negotiating the misaligned incentives within that organization? One aspect I found in orgs like that is that they rely on a culture of isolation or conflict between departments. The worst example of this I experienced was a purchaser buying parts that were not to the spec of the design and caused problems in the field. No one in engineering or support was told of this and it was discovered by our support team in the field. Then engineering had to step in and and say no, only to have to economically justify the increase in cost to meet the spec. We hurt our customers, our product and lost future revenue due to a tarnished reputation. It is difficult to be proud of what you do when something like this happens. It is also unnerving to know that this could even happen in the first place. All of this is due to short sited economics. Negative externalities be damned. Could it be better if we could measure negative externalities in dollars and cents? How does one economically measure trust?
  - pkaye 7y ago
    When I used to do engineering that requirement procurement, we would have a checkbox that it is a critical component and needs engineering approval to substitute.
wongarsu 7y ago
An automated system can still explain why it's making this decision. Sure, for machine learning that's an open research question, but for most systems you actually find in charge of these tasks it's trivial to give useful information. "Your account was terminated because of unpaid invoices"; "Your application was automatically rejected because you failed to meet our education standards"; "You have to reset your password because your company's admin changed the password requirements"; "Your order was canceled because you didn't pass our credit check"
pmiller2 7y ago
Even for job interviews, liability isn't really the reason. As a general principle, conveying true information does not incur liability. In the specific case of job interviews, as long as the feedback is true and not of a legally discriminatory nature, there are no grounds to sue, and such a case would be thrown out by summary judgement. Any employment lawyer would laugh someone out of their office who came to them with a "case" like this. I'm inclined to think it's primarily for the reasons mentioned elsewhere: avoiding back and forth arguments. Frivolous lawsuits from _pro se_ plaintiffs might be a minor consideration, but, as I said, those are easy to get thrown out, provided you're telling the truth and the reason isn't related to any protected classes in employment.

CharlesColeman 7y ago

I think that's closer to the real reason. As a culture it seems we're more and more frequently engaging in selfish "optimizations," that are really just creating or ignoring negative externalities. Corporations are especially guilty of this, given how pathologically focused they are on shareholders. Often their cost-cutting verges on customer abuse: (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513556, for an example I recently read about).

ccsnags 7y ago
Have you ever worked for a company and felt like most of your time was spent negotiating the misaligned incentives within that organization? One aspect I found in orgs like that is that they rely on a culture of isolation or conflict between departments. The worst example of this I experienced was a purchaser buying parts that were not to the spec of the design and caused problems in the field. No one in engineering or support was told of this and it was discovered by our support team in the field. Then engineering had to step in and and say no, only to have to economically justify the increase in cost to meet the spec. We hurt our customers, our product and lost future revenue due to a tarnished reputation. It is difficult to be proud of what you do when something like this happens. It is also unnerving to know that this could even happen in the first place. All of this is due to short sited economics. Negative externalities be damned. Could it be better if we could measure negative externalities in dollars and cents? How does one economically measure trust?
- pkaye 7y ago
  When I used to do engineering that requirement procurement, we would have a checkbox that it is a critical component and needs engineering approval to substitute.

wongarsu 7y ago

An automated system can still explain why it's making this decision. Sure, for machine learning that's an open research question, but for most systems you actually find in charge of these tasks it's trivial to give useful information. "Your account was terminated because of unpaid invoices"; "Your application was automatically rejected because you failed to meet our education standards"; "You have to reset your password because your company's admin changed the password requirements"; "Your order was canceled because you didn't pass our credit check"

pmiller2 7y ago

Even for job interviews, liability isn't really the reason. As a general principle, conveying true information does not incur liability. In the specific case of job interviews, as long as the feedback is true and not of a legally discriminatory nature, there are no grounds to sue, and such a case would be thrown out by summary judgement. Any employment lawyer would laugh someone out of their office who came to them with a "case" like this. I'm inclined to think it's primarily for the reasons mentioned elsewhere: avoiding back and forth arguments. Frivolous lawsuits from _pro se_ plaintiffs might be a minor consideration, but, as I said, those are easy to get thrown out, provided you're telling the truth and the reason isn't related to any protected classes in employment.