22 ms·

When the algorithm is your boss

112 points by jrepinc 5y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
This phrasing is already conceding half the battle. A computer or “algorithm” doesn’t decide goals and values on its own. The computer executes an algorithm that efficiently implements the values of decisions of the people in charge of developing and deploying the software (and their bosses). Businesses have done a great job of laundering controversial and sometimes illegal decisions through “algorithms” as though they were some kind of independent entity.
- Buttons840 5y ago
  The "Uno Reverse Card" for this situation is to ask why we need executives and management when the algorithm does everything. The answer is, as you say, the algorithm isn't actually doing anything really, just what its owners would have done themselves.
  - ahelwer 5y ago
    I don't think that's quite true. It's like the difference between surveilling someone by tailing them and surveilling them with an automated network of cameras equipped with facial recognition. Scale matters. Much work (especially work we call unskilled) is rendered tolerable by the small human moments you have with your coworkers, a conversation out back when taking out the trash or whatever. Management sees any such thing as "time theft" or a similarly dystopian term and would like to eradicate it, but they cannot be everywhere at once. An algorithm can be everywhere at once. So the conversation "maybe people should not actually have to be doing productive things the entire time they are being paid" never really had to be had before, because people would just do things to make their job tolerable. But now that such simple pleasures can actually be eradicated the conversation does have to be had. There are other domains where analogous conversations should be had. Many people agree with their laws in the general and even specific senses, but almost nobody would want to live in a society where all the laws are enforced perfectly 100% of the time. Occasional lawbreaking is necessary for society to function. Anybody who objects to this should really think through what they're wishing for.
    - lupire 5y ago
      That's a different topic -- how much power one person should be allowed to have. It's still the person's power.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- zwkrt 5y ago
  I agree mostly but i think that saying “the algorithm is my boss” really does help the discussion along. I had a friend (“S”) who on hard times sighed up to deliver through uber eats. Their entire tenure included no human interaction. S worked for about 3 weeks, got some bad reviews for delivering food cold, and were “fired” all without ever talking to anyone or seeing anyones face. They would ironically (but truthfully!) claim that their phone was the worst boss they ever had. Its true that somewhere behind the scenes is a set of people making the algorithm and a set of people implementing it, but for the end user/worker there is no human, no realistic arbitration, no negotiation, no favors, no coworkers, no smiles, no understanding, and no recourse. It reminds me of yesterday’s “Did I just lose $500k?” post. When S got fired it may as well have been mandated by god. ADDENDUM: I don't want to toot our horn too much, but also remember that as a member of this forum you are probably an order of magnitude better at navigating complex institutions, understanding business objectives, understanding the “intent” if a piece of algorithmic technology, and advocating for yourself than the average person who picks up gig work. To many people it is literally magic, and the further your boss is toward being magical the closer you are to being a slave to them. And I don't think I am being melodramatic with my choice of words.
  - lupire 5y ago
    The phone wasn't their boss. Uber's bilionaire management was their boss. Phone was the scapegoat.
    - zwkrt 5y ago
      Agreeing with the sibling comment, it would be much better if Uber’s CEO was their boss. S could call him every time a restaurant was late on their order, negotiate for sick pay, and ask him to help shield from the shit higher-ups are giving S. I actually think it is more disingenuous to say that the CEO is the boss than it is to say the phone is.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      I run a (non-tech) business and have automated out some of the day-to-day work to a set of Python scripts I wrote. As weird as this probably sounds, I gave many of the scripts silly names and a couple of them pretend "personalities" (ie error messages/prompts will be phrased as if there's an imaginary character inside the machine). To call software a scapegoat or "not their boss" seems a bit disingenuous. Each algorithm or script has its own goals, its own quirks and its own strengths and weaknesses, just like a human manager. Sometimes these quirks or misaligned goals lead to good people getting fired, just like with a human manager. These algorithms also replaceable and retrainable by the top-level brass, again just like a human manager. To me, what seems wrong is not that machines are making decisions, but that there is no appeals process for the people who've had their lives ruined by such a decision.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  The solution is to move the burden of accountability from low-level management (which is replaced by machines) to the people in charge. CEOs should not be immune from jail
zackmorris 5y ago
This was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual, but here it is again: https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna
- jci 5y ago
  After reading your comment, I went and read this book. Both terrifying and inspiring. Clearly illustrating two extremes, but it’s obvious in which general direction we’d rather veer. And algorithms as bosses isn’t it. Thanks for the recommendation!
- xenophonf 5y ago
  I guess that's one way a Culture-like society could get started. Thanks for the link!
  - Ygg2 5y ago
    Or destroyed. They both have highly advanced AIs. And unstable societies have a tendency to spread their instability.
Animats 5y ago
Machines should think. People should work. This is so much more cost-effective than slavery.
- nkrisc 5y ago
  Machines should work, and people should think while laying about leisurely.
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    People should think and work using machines.
jpalomaki 5y ago
On the other hand, with algorithms you can actually study how the decisions are made. You can investigate what was given as input and how it affected the results. With complicated algorithms it may not be obvious, but then you can try to poke the black box with thousands of sample cases to see how it reacts. Compare this with humans, who often don’t even know themselves what their decisions are really based on.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "On the other hand, with algorithms you can actually study how the decisions are made. You can investigate what was given as input and how it affected the results." You'd have to have access to it. This is highly unlikely. If testing as a black box, could they identify a test and change its behavior, like VW emissions tests?
- the_snooze 5y ago
  Machines don't have shame, reputation, values, empathy. There's little hope of self-correction. An algorithm will never ask "Are we the baddies?"
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    I haven't met many humans who would ever ask the baddies question either - I don't think it ever occurs to people to ask, which is why it makes for a decent comedy skit. Shame and empathy are built in because we really do work better in at least small groups of up to perhaps a few hundred people.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  Yeah, it's easier to investigate a racist algorithm than a racist manager. The article makes the following point, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily worse than the status quo: > All the while, the potential for discrimination based on race, gender, or disability, especially in hiring and firing software, remains obscured behind the black box of AI.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  Who is the "you" here? Workers certainly do not get to probe the internals of the algorithm that fired them. For liability reasons I'm sure human resource management systems are not exposed to researchers. Maybe a court could but in practice I don't think that's happening and the bar to get that kind of review is incredibly high. Only the company itself is actually in practice going to be testing their system but they only do so with a view to their own interests.
rambambram 5y ago
Triangulation (the narcissistic one) at it's best. Make a machine - or software function in this case - the messenger. As an evil c#nt you get a) plausible deniability, b) smoke and mirrors, c) gas lighting, and d) a scape goat in one. Oh, and your algorithms become your 'flying monkeys' as well. For personal reasons I had to dive into NPD, BPD and psychopaths (all cluster B personality disorders) the last years. Once I finally understood that sh1t, a whole lot of other stuff made sense. What big tech is doing here is using these same principles on a world wide scale. I'm not saying this is new, because the Romans with their 'divide and conquer' did basically the same. The solutions to counteract this as an individual are also the same as found in the psychology books: go 'no contact', or at least 'gray rock'. If you are capable, that is. There's going to be a lot of casualties, and I feel for the workers there (or should I say 'victims').
- heisenbit 5y ago
  Yup. Impulsive decision making, lack of empathy, lack of ability to take different points of view and black&white thinking.
  - rambambram 5y ago
    Lack of empathy? Definitely. Impulsive decision making? I'm not so sure. What you describe sounds pretty BPD, especially with the black/white thinking (although I think hot/cold is clearer wording). I was more thinking along sinister lines here. And indeed, zero regard for different points of view. Which is very logical when one finally understands that: if you are - in your own mind - the god of the universe and beyond, every other view is by definition beneath you.
verisimi 5y ago
This is the planned future for us all, unfortunately. Technocracy demands that scientific experts evaluate our reality and then determine what we are and are not allowed to do. Too much carbon/water/energy use = restraints on your usage. (No restraints if you can pay though.) This is what smart meters, smart phones, smart cities are going to facilitate. (Smart = Spy) If I agreed with their evaluations and was able to choose to opt in, I might even consider this. But this is not the plan. What will really happen is that the political and billionaire classes will find that it is right for them to assume the role of determining the technocratic goals that the AI driven system should achieve. We will find that we have a tyrant computer to engage with. There won't be a friendly face to help you by bending the rules in some way. It will be like when you ring up your local governance office to sort something out... but worse. We are not going to be stepping into techno-utopia, that's for sure. A bio-medical-security-id seems to be a required first step.
- Gys 5y ago
  > What will really happen is that the political and billionaire classes will find that it is right for them to assume the role of determining the technocratic goals ‘They’ have power and money because ‘we’ give it to them. Not because they take it from us.
  - krageon 5y ago
    > Not because they take it from us. When you have a monopoly on violence (because you effectively own the government), you have a disproportionately large say about who gets what. The idea that somehow you can have a revolution when the other side has machineguns and all you have is a beer gut and maybe a double-barrel shotgun is naive at best.
  - verisimi 5y ago
    Yes. Partly we give it to them, because they do not present their case in a straightforward way. I think there is a lot of social engineering that occurs, that just happens to align and progress the pre-planned agenda. So, imo, we give our money and power over, as we are deceived.
- 5y ago
not2b 5y ago
Note that this is a British article, and where it uses the word "liberal" American should read it as somewhere between "libertarian" and "neoliberal".
- djrobstep 5y ago
  That's how Americans should also read the word liberal - it means much the same thing everywhere.
  - not2b 5y ago
    Except that in America the word's meaning has shifted, to mean what a European would call a social democrat.
    - djrobstep 5y ago
      No, it really hasn't done that at all. American liberals are absolutely not social democrats.
huqedato 5y ago
I read the story... creepy. This kind of blunt AI boss seemed like from an low quality dystopia. But it is true unfortunately, and closing to us in any industry. AI is not intelligent, is just stupid machine on steroids (the algorithm). I hope here in EU this bleak future is delayed a bit, heard rumors that EU Parl has a series of legal initiatives to fight against.
- mcv 5y ago
  These stories certainly sound like Amazon is eager to usher the worst dystopian future from so many SciFi stories. I get that Jeff Bezos likes SciFi, but not all of them are examples to imitate.
SkipperCat 5y ago
I truly hope that at some point, the pain brought upon the American low wage labor market will re-ignite unions. If it doesn't we are heading to a dual class dystopian future. The Reddit r/antiwork has been getting traction (even with the Fox News debacle) and I'm seeing more and more people talk about wage inequality amongst a lot more social classes than I have in the past decade. Fingers crossed history arcs towards economic equality.
- creakingstairs 5y ago
  Even with wage inequality fixed, we would still be heading to a dual class dystopian future. The rate of capital return is running off and even those with "good" income will struggle to keep up with people starting their life with family wealth. It's happening now. Specialists around me can't find an affordable house even with their relatively high salary unless their parents can help with their initial deposits for a mortgage and ,at least for my country, it's looking to get worse with no capital gains tax :^)
  - greiskul 5y ago
    One thing that can hopefully change that, is the move to remote work where that is possible. It allows high income earners to move to lower cost of living areas (or never leave them to begin with), removing the power that landlords of existing high jobs areas have purely because of pre existing capital, and potentially help revitalize areas that were in downturns before. I know that the only reason I left my hometown is because of higher paying jobs in other cities/countries. If I could make what I make here, while living there, I would probably go back so I could be closer to my family, plus have my taxes help my hometown and country, instead of some other country.
    - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
      I enjoy working remotely and I hope it lasts, but I have to admit a large part of me does worry that it makes my job easier to outsource. If some sort of controls aren't put on companies, I don't know how we can stop massive outsourcing of the white collar jobs, just like what occurred in the manufacturing sector - except with less infrastructure to move.
montechristo34 5y ago
I remember reading Marshall Brain's 'Manna' in the early 00's... sounds like the algorithmic overloads from Burger-G are here https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
greatpostman 5y ago
They inflated assets wjth the money printing, and now we are all slaves to our huge mortgages and corporate overlords. Money printing and immigration have all helped the capitalist class, and yet the politicians claim they help the common man
armchairhacker 5y ago
Maybe one day, in the distant future, we will have AI bosses and AI doctors and AI judges who make very important decisions entirely on their own. And there's nothing wrong with that. Any bias, moral crises, lapse in judgement that AI has, humans have these as well. There are plenty of real-world bosses and HR who respond in a similar manner to the AI "bosses" described in this article. But not today. Because AI is not at the level where it makes mistakes at the same rate as humans. AI is better at chess and maybe driving cars, but it's not yet better at critical thinking, empathy, and solving open-ended problems like "how should we address this employee's performance?" Not necessarily because it can't be better, but it isn't yet at that level. Even if Amazon actually tried to make their AI bosses lenient, without some human holding the final decision or appeal, there will be blatant mistakes like the ones the article describes.
pjmlp 5y ago
So here we are, "Sorry Dave, I can't let you do that."
- CharlesW 5y ago
  "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE?t=64 https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE?t=64 The current version of this is "Computer says no", with humans reduced to being meat-based I/O devices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQgthIs7pM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQgthIs7pM
cblconfederate 5y ago
They may be bad in Amazon, but algorithms are the future of governance everywhere. It will be the end of political divisions.
- Kbelicius 5y ago
  > It will be the end of political divisions. Ha, you wish but it won't happen. We will just divide ourselves in a new way. Which algorithm to use.

112 points by jrepinc 5y ago

This phrasing is already conceding half the battle. A computer or “algorithm” doesn’t decide goals and values on its own. The computer executes an algorithm that efficiently implements the values of decisions of the people in charge of developing and deploying the software (and their bosses). Businesses have done a great job of laundering controversial and sometimes illegal decisions through “algorithms” as though they were some kind of independent entity.

Buttons840 5y ago
The "Uno Reverse Card" for this situation is to ask why we need executives and management when the algorithm does everything. The answer is, as you say, the algorithm isn't actually doing anything really, just what its owners would have done themselves.
- ahelwer 5y ago
  I don't think that's quite true. It's like the difference between surveilling someone by tailing them and surveilling them with an automated network of cameras equipped with facial recognition. Scale matters. Much work (especially work we call unskilled) is rendered tolerable by the small human moments you have with your coworkers, a conversation out back when taking out the trash or whatever. Management sees any such thing as "time theft" or a similarly dystopian term and would like to eradicate it, but they cannot be everywhere at once. An algorithm can be everywhere at once. So the conversation "maybe people should not actually have to be doing productive things the entire time they are being paid" never really had to be had before, because people would just do things to make their job tolerable. But now that such simple pleasures can actually be eradicated the conversation does have to be had. There are other domains where analogous conversations should be had. Many people agree with their laws in the general and even specific senses, but almost nobody would want to live in a society where all the laws are enforced perfectly 100% of the time. Occasional lawbreaking is necessary for society to function. Anybody who objects to this should really think through what they're wishing for.
  - lupire 5y ago
    That's a different topic -- how much power one person should be allowed to have. It's still the person's power.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zwkrt 5y ago
I agree mostly but i think that saying “the algorithm is my boss” really does help the discussion along. I had a friend (“S”) who on hard times sighed up to deliver through uber eats. Their entire tenure included no human interaction. S worked for about 3 weeks, got some bad reviews for delivering food cold, and were “fired” all without ever talking to anyone or seeing anyones face. They would ironically (but truthfully!) claim that their phone was the worst boss they ever had. Its true that somewhere behind the scenes is a set of people making the algorithm and a set of people implementing it, but for the end user/worker there is no human, no realistic arbitration, no negotiation, no favors, no coworkers, no smiles, no understanding, and no recourse. It reminds me of yesterday’s “Did I just lose $500k?” post. When S got fired it may as well have been mandated by god. ADDENDUM: I don't want to toot our horn too much, but also remember that as a member of this forum you are probably an order of magnitude better at navigating complex institutions, understanding business objectives, understanding the “intent” if a piece of algorithmic technology, and advocating for yourself than the average person who picks up gig work. To many people it is literally magic, and the further your boss is toward being magical the closer you are to being a slave to them. And I don't think I am being melodramatic with my choice of words.
- lupire 5y ago
  The phone wasn't their boss. Uber's bilionaire management was their boss. Phone was the scapegoat.
  - zwkrt 5y ago
    Agreeing with the sibling comment, it would be much better if Uber’s CEO was their boss. S could call him every time a restaurant was late on their order, negotiate for sick pay, and ask him to help shield from the shit higher-ups are giving S. I actually think it is more disingenuous to say that the CEO is the boss than it is to say the phone is.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    I run a (non-tech) business and have automated out some of the day-to-day work to a set of Python scripts I wrote. As weird as this probably sounds, I gave many of the scripts silly names and a couple of them pretend "personalities" (ie error messages/prompts will be phrased as if there's an imaginary character inside the machine). To call software a scapegoat or "not their boss" seems a bit disingenuous. Each algorithm or script has its own goals, its own quirks and its own strengths and weaknesses, just like a human manager. Sometimes these quirks or misaligned goals lead to good people getting fired, just like with a human manager. These algorithms also replaceable and retrainable by the top-level brass, again just like a human manager. To me, what seems wrong is not that machines are making decisions, but that there is no appeals process for the people who've had their lives ruined by such a decision.
cblconfederate 5y ago
The solution is to move the burden of accountability from low-level management (which is replaced by machines) to the people in charge. CEOs should not be immune from jail

zackmorris 5y ago

This was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual, but here it is again: https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna

jci 5y ago
After reading your comment, I went and read this book. Both terrifying and inspiring. Clearly illustrating two extremes, but it’s obvious in which general direction we’d rather veer. And algorithms as bosses isn’t it. Thanks for the recommendation!
xenophonf 5y ago
I guess that's one way a Culture-like society could get started. Thanks for the link!
- Ygg2 5y ago
  Or destroyed. They both have highly advanced AIs. And unstable societies have a tendency to spread their instability.

Animats 5y ago

Machines should think. People should work. This is so much more cost-effective than slavery.

nkrisc 5y ago
Machines should work, and people should think while laying about leisurely.
- JetAlone 5y ago
  People should think and work using machines.

jpalomaki 5y ago

On the other hand, with algorithms you can actually study how the decisions are made. You can investigate what was given as input and how it affected the results. With complicated algorithms it may not be obvious, but then you can try to poke the black box with thousands of sample cases to see how it reacts. Compare this with humans, who often don’t even know themselves what their decisions are really based on.

giantg2 5y ago
"On the other hand, with algorithms you can actually study how the decisions are made. You can investigate what was given as input and how it affected the results." You'd have to have access to it. This is highly unlikely. If testing as a black box, could they identify a test and change its behavior, like VW emissions tests?
the_snooze 5y ago
Machines don't have shame, reputation, values, empathy. There's little hope of self-correction. An algorithm will never ask "Are we the baddies?"
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  I haven't met many humans who would ever ask the baddies question either - I don't think it ever occurs to people to ask, which is why it makes for a decent comedy skit. Shame and empathy are built in because we really do work better in at least small groups of up to perhaps a few hundred people.
dehrmann 5y ago
Yeah, it's easier to investigate a racist algorithm than a racist manager. The article makes the following point, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily worse than the status quo: > All the while, the potential for discrimination based on race, gender, or disability, especially in hiring and firing software, remains obscured behind the black box of AI.
advisedwang 5y ago
Who is the "you" here? Workers certainly do not get to probe the internals of the algorithm that fired them. For liability reasons I'm sure human resource management systems are not exposed to researchers. Maybe a court could but in practice I don't think that's happening and the bar to get that kind of review is incredibly high. Only the company itself is actually in practice going to be testing their system but they only do so with a view to their own interests.

rambambram 5y ago

Triangulation (the narcissistic one) at it's best. Make a machine - or software function in this case - the messenger. As an evil c#nt you get a) plausible deniability, b) smoke and mirrors, c) gas lighting, and d) a scape goat in one. Oh, and your algorithms become your 'flying monkeys' as well. For personal reasons I had to dive into NPD, BPD and psychopaths (all cluster B personality disorders) the last years. Once I finally understood that sh1t, a whole lot of other stuff made sense. What big tech is doing here is using these same principles on a world wide scale. I'm not saying this is new, because the Romans with their 'divide and conquer' did basically the same. The solutions to counteract this as an individual are also the same as found in the psychology books: go 'no contact', or at least 'gray rock'. If you are capable, that is. There's going to be a lot of casualties, and I feel for the workers there (or should I say 'victims').

heisenbit 5y ago
Yup. Impulsive decision making, lack of empathy, lack of ability to take different points of view and black&white thinking.
- rambambram 5y ago
  Lack of empathy? Definitely. Impulsive decision making? I'm not so sure. What you describe sounds pretty BPD, especially with the black/white thinking (although I think hot/cold is clearer wording). I was more thinking along sinister lines here. And indeed, zero regard for different points of view. Which is very logical when one finally understands that: if you are - in your own mind - the god of the universe and beyond, every other view is by definition beneath you.

verisimi 5y ago

This is the planned future for us all, unfortunately. Technocracy demands that scientific experts evaluate our reality and then determine what we are and are not allowed to do. Too much carbon/water/energy use = restraints on your usage. (No restraints if you can pay though.) This is what smart meters, smart phones, smart cities are going to facilitate. (Smart = Spy) If I agreed with their evaluations and was able to choose to opt in, I might even consider this. But this is not the plan. What will really happen is that the political and billionaire classes will find that it is right for them to assume the role of determining the technocratic goals that the AI driven system should achieve. We will find that we have a tyrant computer to engage with. There won't be a friendly face to help you by bending the rules in some way. It will be like when you ring up your local governance office to sort something out... but worse. We are not going to be stepping into techno-utopia, that's for sure. A bio-medical-security-id seems to be a required first step.

Gys 5y ago
> What will really happen is that the political and billionaire classes will find that it is right for them to assume the role of determining the technocratic goals ‘They’ have power and money because ‘we’ give it to them. Not because they take it from us.
- krageon 5y ago
  > Not because they take it from us. When you have a monopoly on violence (because you effectively own the government), you have a disproportionately large say about who gets what. The idea that somehow you can have a revolution when the other side has machineguns and all you have is a beer gut and maybe a double-barrel shotgun is naive at best.
- verisimi 5y ago
  Yes. Partly we give it to them, because they do not present their case in a straightforward way. I think there is a lot of social engineering that occurs, that just happens to align and progress the pre-planned agenda. So, imo, we give our money and power over, as we are deceived.
5y ago

not2b 5y ago

Note that this is a British article, and where it uses the word "liberal" American should read it as somewhere between "libertarian" and "neoliberal".

djrobstep 5y ago
That's how Americans should also read the word liberal - it means much the same thing everywhere.
- not2b 5y ago
  Except that in America the word's meaning has shifted, to mean what a European would call a social democrat.
  - djrobstep 5y ago
    No, it really hasn't done that at all. American liberals are absolutely not social democrats.

huqedato 5y ago

I read the story... creepy. This kind of blunt AI boss seemed like from an low quality dystopia. But it is true unfortunately, and closing to us in any industry. AI is not intelligent, is just stupid machine on steroids (the algorithm). I hope here in EU this bleak future is delayed a bit, heard rumors that EU Parl has a series of legal initiatives to fight against.

mcv 5y ago
These stories certainly sound like Amazon is eager to usher the worst dystopian future from so many SciFi stories. I get that Jeff Bezos likes SciFi, but not all of them are examples to imitate.

SkipperCat 5y ago

I truly hope that at some point, the pain brought upon the American low wage labor market will re-ignite unions. If it doesn't we are heading to a dual class dystopian future. The Reddit r/antiwork has been getting traction (even with the Fox News debacle) and I'm seeing more and more people talk about wage inequality amongst a lot more social classes than I have in the past decade. Fingers crossed history arcs towards economic equality.

creakingstairs 5y ago
Even with wage inequality fixed, we would still be heading to a dual class dystopian future. The rate of capital return is running off and even those with "good" income will struggle to keep up with people starting their life with family wealth. It's happening now. Specialists around me can't find an affordable house even with their relatively high salary unless their parents can help with their initial deposits for a mortgage and ,at least for my country, it's looking to get worse with no capital gains tax :^)
- greiskul 5y ago
  One thing that can hopefully change that, is the move to remote work where that is possible. It allows high income earners to move to lower cost of living areas (or never leave them to begin with), removing the power that landlords of existing high jobs areas have purely because of pre existing capital, and potentially help revitalize areas that were in downturns before. I know that the only reason I left my hometown is because of higher paying jobs in other cities/countries. If I could make what I make here, while living there, I would probably go back so I could be closer to my family, plus have my taxes help my hometown and country, instead of some other country.
  - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    I enjoy working remotely and I hope it lasts, but I have to admit a large part of me does worry that it makes my job easier to outsource. If some sort of controls aren't put on companies, I don't know how we can stop massive outsourcing of the white collar jobs, just like what occurred in the manufacturing sector - except with less infrastructure to move.

montechristo34 5y ago

I remember reading Marshall Brain's 'Manna' in the early 00's... sounds like the algorithmic overloads from Burger-G are here https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

greatpostman 5y ago

They inflated assets wjth the money printing, and now we are all slaves to our huge mortgages and corporate overlords. Money printing and immigration have all helped the capitalist class, and yet the politicians claim they help the common man

armchairhacker 5y ago

Maybe one day, in the distant future, we will have AI bosses and AI doctors and AI judges who make very important decisions entirely on their own. And there's nothing wrong with that. Any bias, moral crises, lapse in judgement that AI has, humans have these as well. There are plenty of real-world bosses and HR who respond in a similar manner to the AI "bosses" described in this article. But not today. Because AI is not at the level where it makes mistakes at the same rate as humans. AI is better at chess and maybe driving cars, but it's not yet better at critical thinking, empathy, and solving open-ended problems like "how should we address this employee's performance?" Not necessarily because it can't be better, but it isn't yet at that level. Even if Amazon actually tried to make their AI bosses lenient, without some human holding the final decision or appeal, there will be blatant mistakes like the ones the article describes.

pjmlp 5y ago

So here we are, "Sorry Dave, I can't let you do that."

CharlesW 5y ago
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE?t=64 https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE?t=64 The current version of this is "Computer says no", with humans reduced to being meat-based I/O devices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQgthIs7pM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQgthIs7pM

cblconfederate 5y ago

They may be bad in Amazon, but algorithms are the future of governance everywhere. It will be the end of political divisions.

Kbelicius 5y ago
> It will be the end of political divisions. Ha, you wish but it won't happen. We will just divide ourselves in a new way. Which algorithm to use.