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Watson was a stunt. It's not very hard for someone on HN to figure out how much of Watson was Watson. The crowd still bought it. But as someone who worked on s

Watson was a stunt. It's not very hard for someone on HN to figure out how much of Watson was Watson. The crowd still bought it. But as someone who worked on software that handled the last example you gave, I assure, a few well placed if and elses do the trick. Also, humans have tendency to follow any instructions sent to them when it is titled "System" or "Administration". *System Message:* New revised schedule for. Monday, Feb 31st, 3pm to 11pm. Qualify for overtime. Reply 24h prior to decline. The more robotic your message sound, the more people are compelled to comply.

paganel 4y ago
> The more robotic your message sound, the more people are compelled to comply. Thankfully that is not the case where I live (somewhere in Europe), but I can see what you describe becoming true in a very dystopic future. Does that AI also handle situations like “boss, would you be so kind to borrow me some money for 2, 3 days? Until the salary comes, that is, cause me and my SO are totally out of it”? Cause some of my former bosses/managers certainly did.
- alvis 4y ago
  I can imagine it can be a fintech opportunity. An AI that automatically performs a credit check behind the scene and lend you the money in advance, probably money in your account in seconds. It's not too hard actually.
  - josefx 4y ago
    Why the hell would you perform a credit check if someone who works for you needs some of their salary two days early? Would you stop paying their salary if the credit check came back negative? Of course that seems like exactly the pointless and counterproductive behavior one would expect from a badly designed automated system.
    - geodel 4y ago
      > .. the pointless and counterproductive behavior one would expect from a badly designed automated system. Badly designed automated systems are the life blood of our economy.
  - ztrww 4y ago
    This is different from a pay day loan how exactly? I have bank app on my phone which claims that I can get an up to 35k loan in minutes
    - zingar 4y ago
      You’re describing an interest bearing loan. This is more like being able to withdraw money that you already earned, you just don’t have it because it’s not the 25th of the month yet. Floatpays in the latest YC batch is one of these.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    There are several providers which offers salary linked loans and advances already, and one of the benefits is that when it's an advance on your salary there's no need to credit check the employee because it's the company which will pay it back when your salary is due.
  - tareqak 4y ago
    I can imagine something a lot simpler: ask employees the cadence at which they want to be paid out (daily, weekly, bimonthly, monthly) as allowed by law and pay them that way. Yes, more bank transactions will cost the business more. That might be something the employee will have to pay for, or it might be something that governments require businesses to eat the cost on.
- firefoxd 4y ago
  While I was still working there, a vendor had approached us with a service that allow employees to get a pay advance. No fees if it's 2 to 3 days ahead. I can't for the life of me remember their name. But it's basically a debit card you get where your estimated pay is deposited earlier. And they have an api we can integrate with. So to answer your question, yes it sure can.
meowface 4y ago
>Watson was a stunt. It's not very hard for someone on HN to figure out how much of Watson was Watson. Can you elaborate?
- largepeepee 4y ago
  Waston isn't so much an early general chess ai than a program aided by programmers/other gms to beat a very specific style of chess that the previous world champion played in a limited number of games
  - jstx1 4y ago
    I think that you're mixing up Watson the jeopardy bot with Deep Blue the chess bot.
    - dmurray 4y ago
      No, he's reasoning by analogy. Read it as "Watson isn't so much a general trivia AI", etc.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mcv 4y ago
> Also, humans have tendency to follow any instructions sent to them when it is titled "System" or "Administration". Really? I tend to not even read them. That might a bad idea, but that's the way my instincts go.
wokwokwok 4y ago
I don’t know what problem you were solving, but irony is that optimal constraint based scheduling is an NP hard problem, that is usually solved using heuristics that an AI could actually do a very good job at. …so no, a few if and else statements will not cut it, in any sense compared to a competent manager. …but plausibly yes, some kind of ML system could replace that part of the job. (: Problems are harder than they look; the whole point is that managers exist because those problems are hard, and they exist now because current approaches (a few if statements is obviously irrelevant, but specifically constraint solvers) to solving them a) take too long to run, b) are too difficult to express dynamically changing problems in and c) lack the “human touch” of favouritism that managers use to doll out rewards and punishments by giving good and bad shifts. …but, quite plausibly, that work could now be done by a model that takes human speech input and translates it into input for a constraint solver, or even implements a novel constraint solver. There is novel stuff now, that really does make a difference for this kind of specific domain problem. It won’t get rid of a shop manager, but it’ll probably make their life easier and mean they can drop having an assistant manager.
mrweasel 4y ago
I think you need to reverse the "Reply" so it's "Reply to accept". Anyway the issue with having an AI or just a regular old program doing things like that is that it will insist on following the rules. So you end up with tricky issues where the system WILL NOT revise the schedule 2 days in advance, because workers are required 7 days notice for instance. Or it can not fill a shift, because there are no one left it can legally call upon. My wife works in a field that has less unemployment than IT, it is literally impossible to hire extra staff, there simply aren't any. These business also have legally mandate opening hours and a union (not a good one, but it's there). If more than one person call in sick, they technically have a problem, especially for evening shifts, where only one person is at work. You end up with situations where you're legally required to call someone to work, because you need to stay open. You just can't call anyone, because they are already at their maximum number of hours for that week (due to a lack of staff), or you the staff that is available aren't legally allowed to work for the next 11 hours, or the notice would be to short, or you're not able to schedule new off time quickly enough. In the real world people ignore or bend rules to make things work. Computers don't. The sad reality is that we're surrounded by rules and legislation that are constantly in conflict with each other. It's one of my concerns with self driving cars as well, but to a lesser extend. Some roads are just over used, and with no alternatives, to a point where an AI that insist on keeping a safe distance would reveal that our infrastructure is very poorly laid out. It's just that human brains know and understand how to bend rules to make society work.
- Volrath89 4y ago
  Which field is that? I thought healthcare but it must not be it because you said there was only one person at the evening shift.
  - jesuscript 4y ago
    Can still possibly be healthcare. Even on a floor with 20+ patients, you only need one RN and one CNA on the floor (I’ve seen skeleton crews like that). Those facilities didn’t even stock up on face masks before Covid, so believe me when I say they know how to run a tight budget.
  - 4y ago
Ialdaboth 4y ago
Humanity is shaped by its tools much more than the other way around.
johnward 4y ago
I worked for the Watson group. It was largely a marketing play which did land with some enterprises but is ultimately a failure because the tech was not there.

paganel 4y ago

> The more robotic your message sound, the more people are compelled to comply. Thankfully that is not the case where I live (somewhere in Europe), but I can see what you describe becoming true in a very dystopic future. Does that AI also handle situations like “boss, would you be so kind to borrow me some money for 2, 3 days? Until the salary comes, that is, cause me and my SO are totally out of it”? Cause some of my former bosses/managers certainly did.

alvis 4y ago
I can imagine it can be a fintech opportunity. An AI that automatically performs a credit check behind the scene and lend you the money in advance, probably money in your account in seconds. It's not too hard actually.
- josefx 4y ago
  Why the hell would you perform a credit check if someone who works for you needs some of their salary two days early? Would you stop paying their salary if the credit check came back negative? Of course that seems like exactly the pointless and counterproductive behavior one would expect from a badly designed automated system.
  - geodel 4y ago
    > .. the pointless and counterproductive behavior one would expect from a badly designed automated system. Badly designed automated systems are the life blood of our economy.
- ztrww 4y ago
  This is different from a pay day loan how exactly? I have bank app on my phone which claims that I can get an up to 35k loan in minutes
  - zingar 4y ago
    You’re describing an interest bearing loan. This is more like being able to withdraw money that you already earned, you just don’t have it because it’s not the 25th of the month yet. Floatpays in the latest YC batch is one of these.
- vidarh 4y ago
  There are several providers which offers salary linked loans and advances already, and one of the benefits is that when it's an advance on your salary there's no need to credit check the employee because it's the company which will pay it back when your salary is due.
- tareqak 4y ago
  I can imagine something a lot simpler: ask employees the cadence at which they want to be paid out (daily, weekly, bimonthly, monthly) as allowed by law and pay them that way. Yes, more bank transactions will cost the business more. That might be something the employee will have to pay for, or it might be something that governments require businesses to eat the cost on.
firefoxd 4y ago
While I was still working there, a vendor had approached us with a service that allow employees to get a pay advance. No fees if it's 2 to 3 days ahead. I can't for the life of me remember their name. But it's basically a debit card you get where your estimated pay is deposited earlier. And they have an api we can integrate with. So to answer your question, yes it sure can.

meowface 4y ago

>Watson was a stunt. It's not very hard for someone on HN to figure out how much of Watson was Watson. Can you elaborate?

largepeepee 4y ago
Waston isn't so much an early general chess ai than a program aided by programmers/other gms to beat a very specific style of chess that the previous world champion played in a limited number of games
- jstx1 4y ago
  I think that you're mixing up Watson the jeopardy bot with Deep Blue the chess bot.
  - dmurray 4y ago
    No, he's reasoning by analogy. Read it as "Watson isn't so much a general trivia AI", etc.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mcv 4y ago

> Also, humans have tendency to follow any instructions sent to them when it is titled "System" or "Administration". Really? I tend to not even read them. That might a bad idea, but that's the way my instincts go.

wokwokwok 4y ago

I don’t know what problem you were solving, but irony is that optimal constraint based scheduling is an NP hard problem, that is usually solved using heuristics that an AI could actually do a very good job at. …so no, a few if and else statements will not cut it, in any sense compared to a competent manager. …but plausibly yes, some kind of ML system could replace that part of the job. (: Problems are harder than they look; the whole point is that managers exist because those problems are hard, and they exist now because current approaches (a few if statements is obviously irrelevant, but specifically constraint solvers) to solving them a) take too long to run, b) are too difficult to express dynamically changing problems in and c) lack the “human touch” of favouritism that managers use to doll out rewards and punishments by giving good and bad shifts. …but, quite plausibly, that work could now be done by a model that takes human speech input and translates it into input for a constraint solver, or even implements a novel constraint solver. There is novel stuff now, that really does make a difference for this kind of specific domain problem. It won’t get rid of a shop manager, but it’ll probably make their life easier and mean they can drop having an assistant manager.

mrweasel 4y ago

I think you need to reverse the "Reply" so it's "Reply to accept". Anyway the issue with having an AI or just a regular old program doing things like that is that it will insist on following the rules. So you end up with tricky issues where the system WILL NOT revise the schedule 2 days in advance, because workers are required 7 days notice for instance. Or it can not fill a shift, because there are no one left it can legally call upon. My wife works in a field that has less unemployment than IT, it is literally impossible to hire extra staff, there simply aren't any. These business also have legally mandate opening hours and a union (not a good one, but it's there). If more than one person call in sick, they technically have a problem, especially for evening shifts, where only one person is at work. You end up with situations where you're legally required to call someone to work, because you need to stay open. You just can't call anyone, because they are already at their maximum number of hours for that week (due to a lack of staff), or you the staff that is available aren't legally allowed to work for the next 11 hours, or the notice would be to short, or you're not able to schedule new off time quickly enough. In the real world people ignore or bend rules to make things work. Computers don't. The sad reality is that we're surrounded by rules and legislation that are constantly in conflict with each other. It's one of my concerns with self driving cars as well, but to a lesser extend. Some roads are just over used, and with no alternatives, to a point where an AI that insist on keeping a safe distance would reveal that our infrastructure is very poorly laid out. It's just that human brains know and understand how to bend rules to make society work.

Volrath89 4y ago
Which field is that? I thought healthcare but it must not be it because you said there was only one person at the evening shift.
- jesuscript 4y ago
  Can still possibly be healthcare. Even on a floor with 20+ patients, you only need one RN and one CNA on the floor (I’ve seen skeleton crews like that). Those facilities didn’t even stock up on face masks before Covid, so believe me when I say they know how to run a tight budget.
- 4y ago

Ialdaboth 4y ago

Humanity is shaped by its tools much more than the other way around.

johnward 4y ago

I worked for the Watson group. It was largely a marketing play which did land with some enterprises but is ultimately a failure because the tech was not there.