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It is disgusting that no one from media asks Sundar Pichai touch questions like: 1. Non human (AI) usage for termination google accounts. 2. No repeal process

It is disgusting that no one from media asks Sundar Pichai touch questions like: 1. Non human (AI) usage for termination google accounts. 2. No repeal process At least some employee from Google here in hn must do things and understand mentality of other people. It increasingly looks like - well... we employees live in bubble but if you are unlucky then you are screwed. Do not ask us? What kind of programmers wrote such code that terminates account without human intervention? Please do not blame it on Project Managers. You are human - so is some one that was affected by your code. Amen

luckylion 6y ago
> What kind of programmers wrote such code that terminates account without human intervention? Please do not blame it on Project Managers. One who gets paid half a million a year to not question the policies and their consequences and just does what they are told?
- lowiqengineer 6y ago
  It’s pretty apparent that they think people who don’t work for google are vastly inferior human beings. It honestly runs counter to their “social justice” facade.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    I really think this is unreasonable. Even at google there are different subcultures, including many with an anti-corporate streak. Furthermore I’m not going to blame an employee for not sticking out their neck for client businesses who also don’t give a shit about them. This isn’t a problem of individual providence. Google needs a damn union just to get some reason in the building.
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      > Google needs a damn union just to get some reason in the building. The problem is not mainly with how Google treats their employees (though there's definitely something wrong there), but with how they treat their customers.
      - lowiqengineer 6y ago
        Its true - they believe themselves to be so damn smart they behave with rank condescension towards everyone else as the "top 1% of intelligence".
        thejynxed 6y ago
        If they were so smart their lunch wouldn't be getting eaten by the likes of Amazon.
      - monadic2 6y ago
        I was referring to the use of a union to give employees say about the products they make. They provide collective leverage far more broadly than in the negotiation of work conditions and compensation and can negotiate directly with the board, who would normally go to great lengths to avoid speaking to their own employees (in my experience). Hell, I’ve met more investors footing my salary than board members per se, and they definitely have zero interest in employee negotiations—that’s what management is for.
    - fortran77 6y ago
      Nobody who get a Google paycheck has a sincere "anti-corporate" streak.
      - cft 6y ago
        An anecdote: I was running my bootstraped company with 5 employees when in 2013 I suddenly started getting Google recruiting emails about once every 4 days. They wanted me for a "role" of a SRE, probably because I asked stack overflow sysadmin questions. I never responded.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      > Google needs a damn union just to get some reason in the building. I'm pretty pro-union in general but I don't follow your reasoning. Cops are unionized, and when they murder innocent civilians in broad daylight, the unions are right behind to pay for their legal defense. Unions don't bring reason to a workforce; they merely represent that workforce.
    - dialamac 6y ago
      > including many with an anti-corporate streak. So basically the worst form of slacktivist hypocrites.
      - monadic2 6y ago
        I was not looking to start an argument; you are entitled to your opinions, at least.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        dialamac 6y ago
        I’m not arguing either. But dude, google? Google!? Its business is selling ads for corporations. A google software engineer can get a job at countless places including nonprofits sometimes making close to google money, but even if they made half that income they would be living more comfortably than 3/4s of the US. Anti corporate soapbox or google job, please just pick one.
gdulli 6y ago
I just created a Google Voice account for the first time. A few hours later I asked 3 different friends to send me a text message to see if it worked. I didn't get any of them or any warning that it takes time for the number to activate. I tried again the next day, same results. That was 4-5 days ago, and still nothing. I'm abandoning Google Voice because I assume Google has abandoned it. It's not like there's anyone I can ask. This is just an inconvenience to me. I can't imagine what it's like to have a service I actually rely on and then lose it.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  Google is a proverbial a jack of all trades, master of none. If you need to depend of them for a specific service, don't. Go with an actual business that cares and have the focus on what's important, and more importantly a customer service that listens. I went with a dedicated VoIP provider, and the service has been excellent
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Can you suggest an alternative to Voice? I need SMS and voice, and prefer data being optional (Voice can forward to a dumbphone, or even a landline). Happy to pay, just haven't found an obvious direct competitor.
    - justinc8687 6y ago
      Dialpad is useful for this. They're one of the few alternatives I've found that allows for routing calls over POTS.
    - techbubble 6y ago
      I like the Unlisted app https://www.unlistedapp.com https://www.unlistedapp.com I got it a few years ago and haven't had any problems. I think it might be iOS only. There are plenty of other burner phone number apps which work on both Android and iOS.
      - 6y ago
microcolonel 6y ago
The odd thing is that they can't even make a cost argument for this. If they charged a cost recovery fee for human redress of these sorts of issues, it would not cost them anything, and that's assuming they don't lose money from improper automated enforcement, which they almost certainly do. It's pure incompetence.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Why would I want to keep paying google for their shitty AI’s mistakes?
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    The alternative is being disappeared without recourse, if you have to pay 40 bucks when they screw up, it is what it is, and you can make a decision.
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      That is (morally) wrong on so many levels. It’s basically what regulations were invented for.
      - microcolonel 6y ago
        What would your brilliant regulation entail? Forcing companies to publish software for free when their automated systems think it's malware? Could you even summarize a piece of legislation that doesn't amount to "describe Google, then make everything that annoys us about Google illegal for companies fitting that description"?
        thejynxed 6y ago
        Apply anti-trust law as is currently written for starters. Standard Oil and Ma Bell were split for less egregious offenses than we've seen from Alphabet/Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. In Standard Oil's case, vertical integration across markets was enough, and pretty much everyone in Big Tech is guilty of this.
syshum 6y ago
>>What kind of programmers wrote such code that terminates The Human mind has an infinite capacity to justify any manner of things as "just doing my job" or "just following orders" This has been seen in all industry, in all types of roles and at all times in history There is nothing more dangerous than a group of people "just doing their jobs"
- coffeefirst 6y ago
  Also hubris. Hubris is a hell of a drug.
whathappenedto 6y ago
So it's easy to think with a human customer service agent, all will be well. But then I think about all the customer service calls I've made or emails I've sent, and I almost wish that they did not exist so I don't get my hopes up and waste my time. Most customer service is worse than a computerized flowchart. And even if they do understand your situation, and have authenticated you, and aren't just reading a script, then most of the time they can't offer you anything else besides what's possible on the website anyways. Sometimes we just like having someone to complain to.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  Sure thing, but I still prefer to talking to the worst human, than the best KI avaible. Also, I bet no one think all will be well, without KI, but it will be better dealing with incompetent, overworked and underpaid call workers, than dealing with a "smart" KI, with you cannot talk at all. In the first case there is at least the hope, that someone escalates the problem to someone with more knowledge who can finally solve your problem.
- IshKebab 6y ago
  That's not my experience of call centres. While they are generally reading from a script and often they have no more information than you do, they crucially have the ability to recognise when things aren't working right and escalate your issue. With Google's bot approach that can never happen. The only way to escalate issues is to be famous and write a blog post or tweet about it.
Aeolun 6y ago
The problem is that regardless of the number of programmers that refuse to implement the whole thing, you only need one to ever say yes to get it. So every bad idea eventually gets implemented.
hw 6y ago
Not surprising, given the amount of so called "engineers" they hire, some of whom don't really have a background in CS, just studied for the interviews, or came from a coding school. It's astonishing how many fresh code bootcamp grads that companies like Google pick up and pay 6 figures for.
solidsnack9000 6y ago
The absence of an appeals process for online forums and stores is one of the great threats to public life today.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  Most societies actually have something to solve such disputes: courts of law. The real tragedy is that we decided to let corporations grow so big that they can say "fuck you" to courts and people alike with no repercussions. Twitter is famous for this, ever tried to appeal a ban?
  - solidsnack9000 6y ago
    I fear this is overstatement...people don't have a recognised right to an appeal if their app is shutdown. Only if the agreements were written in such a way as to define such a right, would a court of law even be involved. This isn't about companies being too big, it's about an absence of rule making. If there were some rules defining the rights, then the courts could, indeed, be involved; but courts can't be brought into something just because it is "wrong". People agree to the ToS when they submit an app to the store; and the ToS more or less say, it's Gapplsoft's platform and they may do what they like.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > people don't have a recognised right to an appeal if their app is shutdown. In Germany, people and political parties have obtained court judgements to unlock their Twitter and FB accounts. Generally the principle behind these decisions was that Twitter and FB are a public venue for discourse and therefore it goes against free speech to ban accounts for acceptable speech. The only downside is that it are mostly hardcore actual Nazis which obtain these rulings, e.g. from the NPD party: https://www.belltower.news/gerichtsstreit-facebook-muss-seite-der-npd-sachsen-entsperren-80187/ https://www.belltower.news/gerichtsstreit-facebook-muss-seit...
      - solidsnack9000 6y ago

luckylion 6y ago

> What kind of programmers wrote such code that terminates account without human intervention? Please do not blame it on Project Managers. One who gets paid half a million a year to not question the policies and their consequences and just does what they are told?

lowiqengineer 6y ago
It’s pretty apparent that they think people who don’t work for google are vastly inferior human beings. It honestly runs counter to their “social justice” facade.
- monadic2 6y ago
  I really think this is unreasonable. Even at google there are different subcultures, including many with an anti-corporate streak. Furthermore I’m not going to blame an employee for not sticking out their neck for client businesses who also don’t give a shit about them. This isn’t a problem of individual providence. Google needs a damn union just to get some reason in the building.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    > Google needs a damn union just to get some reason in the building. The problem is not mainly with how Google treats their employees (though there's definitely something wrong there), but with how they treat their customers.
    - lowiqengineer 6y ago
      Its true - they believe themselves to be so damn smart they behave with rank condescension towards everyone else as the "top 1% of intelligence".
      - thejynxed 6y ago
        If they were so smart their lunch wouldn't be getting eaten by the likes of Amazon.
    - monadic2 6y ago
      I was referring to the use of a union to give employees say about the products they make. They provide collective leverage far more broadly than in the negotiation of work conditions and compensation and can negotiate directly with the board, who would normally go to great lengths to avoid speaking to their own employees (in my experience). Hell, I’ve met more investors footing my salary than board members per se, and they definitely have zero interest in employee negotiations—that’s what management is for.
  - fortran77 6y ago
    Nobody who get a Google paycheck has a sincere "anti-corporate" streak.
    - cft 6y ago
      An anecdote: I was running my bootstraped company with 5 employees when in 2013 I suddenly started getting Google recruiting emails about once every 4 days. They wanted me for a "role" of a SRE, probably because I asked stack overflow sysadmin questions. I never responded.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    > Google needs a damn union just to get some reason in the building. I'm pretty pro-union in general but I don't follow your reasoning. Cops are unionized, and when they murder innocent civilians in broad daylight, the unions are right behind to pay for their legal defense. Unions don't bring reason to a workforce; they merely represent that workforce.
  - dialamac 6y ago
    > including many with an anti-corporate streak. So basically the worst form of slacktivist hypocrites.
    - monadic2 6y ago
      I was not looking to start an argument; you are entitled to your opinions, at least.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - dialamac 6y ago
        I’m not arguing either. But dude, google? Google!? Its business is selling ads for corporations. A google software engineer can get a job at countless places including nonprofits sometimes making close to google money, but even if they made half that income they would be living more comfortably than 3/4s of the US. Anti corporate soapbox or google job, please just pick one.

gdulli 6y ago

I just created a Google Voice account for the first time. A few hours later I asked 3 different friends to send me a text message to see if it worked. I didn't get any of them or any warning that it takes time for the number to activate. I tried again the next day, same results. That was 4-5 days ago, and still nothing. I'm abandoning Google Voice because I assume Google has abandoned it. It's not like there's anyone I can ask. This is just an inconvenience to me. I can't imagine what it's like to have a service I actually rely on and then lose it.

m-p-3 6y ago
Google is a proverbial a jack of all trades, master of none. If you need to depend of them for a specific service, don't. Go with an actual business that cares and have the focus on what's important, and more importantly a customer service that listens. I went with a dedicated VoIP provider, and the service has been excellent
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Can you suggest an alternative to Voice? I need SMS and voice, and prefer data being optional (Voice can forward to a dumbphone, or even a landline). Happy to pay, just haven't found an obvious direct competitor.
  - justinc8687 6y ago
    Dialpad is useful for this. They're one of the few alternatives I've found that allows for routing calls over POTS.
  - techbubble 6y ago
    I like the Unlisted app https://www.unlistedapp.com https://www.unlistedapp.com I got it a few years ago and haven't had any problems. I think it might be iOS only. There are plenty of other burner phone number apps which work on both Android and iOS.
    - 6y ago

microcolonel 6y ago

The odd thing is that they can't even make a cost argument for this. If they charged a cost recovery fee for human redress of these sorts of issues, it would not cost them anything, and that's assuming they don't lose money from improper automated enforcement, which they almost certainly do. It's pure incompetence.

Aeolun 6y ago
Why would I want to keep paying google for their shitty AI’s mistakes?
- microcolonel 6y ago
  The alternative is being disappeared without recourse, if you have to pay 40 bucks when they screw up, it is what it is, and you can make a decision.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    That is (morally) wrong on so many levels. It’s basically what regulations were invented for.
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      What would your brilliant regulation entail? Forcing companies to publish software for free when their automated systems think it's malware? Could you even summarize a piece of legislation that doesn't amount to "describe Google, then make everything that annoys us about Google illegal for companies fitting that description"?
      - thejynxed 6y ago
        Apply anti-trust law as is currently written for starters. Standard Oil and Ma Bell were split for less egregious offenses than we've seen from Alphabet/Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. In Standard Oil's case, vertical integration across markets was enough, and pretty much everyone in Big Tech is guilty of this.

syshum 6y ago

>>What kind of programmers wrote such code that terminates The Human mind has an infinite capacity to justify any manner of things as "just doing my job" or "just following orders" This has been seen in all industry, in all types of roles and at all times in history There is nothing more dangerous than a group of people "just doing their jobs"

coffeefirst 6y ago
Also hubris. Hubris is a hell of a drug.

whathappenedto 6y ago

So it's easy to think with a human customer service agent, all will be well. But then I think about all the customer service calls I've made or emails I've sent, and I almost wish that they did not exist so I don't get my hopes up and waste my time. Most customer service is worse than a computerized flowchart. And even if they do understand your situation, and have authenticated you, and aren't just reading a script, then most of the time they can't offer you anything else besides what's possible on the website anyways. Sometimes we just like having someone to complain to.

hutzlibu 6y ago
Sure thing, but I still prefer to talking to the worst human, than the best KI avaible. Also, I bet no one think all will be well, without KI, but it will be better dealing with incompetent, overworked and underpaid call workers, than dealing with a "smart" KI, with you cannot talk at all. In the first case there is at least the hope, that someone escalates the problem to someone with more knowledge who can finally solve your problem.
IshKebab 6y ago
That's not my experience of call centres. While they are generally reading from a script and often they have no more information than you do, they crucially have the ability to recognise when things aren't working right and escalate your issue. With Google's bot approach that can never happen. The only way to escalate issues is to be famous and write a blog post or tweet about it.

Aeolun 6y ago

The problem is that regardless of the number of programmers that refuse to implement the whole thing, you only need one to ever say yes to get it. So every bad idea eventually gets implemented.

hw 6y ago

Not surprising, given the amount of so called "engineers" they hire, some of whom don't really have a background in CS, just studied for the interviews, or came from a coding school. It's astonishing how many fresh code bootcamp grads that companies like Google pick up and pay 6 figures for.

solidsnack9000 6y ago

The absence of an appeals process for online forums and stores is one of the great threats to public life today.

mschuster91 6y ago
Most societies actually have something to solve such disputes: courts of law. The real tragedy is that we decided to let corporations grow so big that they can say "fuck you" to courts and people alike with no repercussions. Twitter is famous for this, ever tried to appeal a ban?
- solidsnack9000 6y ago
  I fear this is overstatement...people don't have a recognised right to an appeal if their app is shutdown. Only if the agreements were written in such a way as to define such a right, would a court of law even be involved. This isn't about companies being too big, it's about an absence of rule making. If there were some rules defining the rights, then the courts could, indeed, be involved; but courts can't be brought into something just because it is "wrong". People agree to the ToS when they submit an app to the store; and the ToS more or less say, it's Gapplsoft's platform and they may do what they like.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > people don't have a recognised right to an appeal if their app is shutdown. In Germany, people and political parties have obtained court judgements to unlock their Twitter and FB accounts. Generally the principle behind these decisions was that Twitter and FB are a public venue for discourse and therefore it goes against free speech to ban accounts for acceptable speech. The only downside is that it are mostly hardcore actual Nazis which obtain these rulings, e.g. from the NPD party: https://www.belltower.news/gerichtsstreit-facebook-muss-seite-der-npd-sachsen-entsperren-80187/ https://www.belltower.news/gerichtsstreit-facebook-muss-seit...
    - solidsnack9000 6y ago