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I witnessed the dystopian future where humans are slaves to machines at my favorite local Mexican restaurant. It was about an hour before close. The kids and I

I witnessed the dystopian future where humans are slaves to machines at my favorite local Mexican restaurant. It was about an hour before close. The kids and I were the only customers there. Before we ordered our food we had to wait for the staff to explain to a very annoyed door dasher that the meal they were here for had already been picked up by someone else. As we ate dinner over the next half hour, a new door dasher would arrive every few minutes in an attempt to pick up that same already-picked-up order. Eventually eight people had been sent by the machines to pick up the same order! So no, robots are not required to enslave humans and cause them misery, an app will suffice.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
There was that pharmacy/market that had a wheeled robot patrolling the isles looking for spills, and the bot would call a human wagie to come mop it up.
- disqard 2y ago
  You might like (or hate) to check out Eric Sadin's "Injunctive turn of Technology"
democracy 2y ago
An incompetent manager would also do the job )
- elicksaur 2y ago
  Why does someone always have to chime in “But humans can be bad, too!” We shouldn’t advertise for these companies by denigrating other people. The app economy sucks.
  - iinnPP 2y ago
    Because it's an important reminder that it doesn't need to be perfect to replace you.
  - pj_mukh 2y ago
    I don't know man, somebody mentioned complete outlier "dystopian" machine behavior. For every one of those, I've eaten at 10 restaurants with the delivery line absolutely swamped with orders and deliveries happening like the clockwork of an assembly line. I wish the restaurants and delivery drivers made more money in the exchange but none of that is the machines fault (AI doesn't set Doordash's margins). At the end of it all, humans are mostly responsible for other humans' misery. No AI required.
  - 8note 2y ago
    the apps only do what people tell them to do. the same executives that push the manager to be bad are the ones pushing for the apps to be bad. the apps arent bad in and of themselves. couch surfing and warm showers arent putting in exhorbitant cleaning fees.
- agumonkey 2y ago
  silicon valley invented managerless misery without even knowing
- aussieguy1234 2y ago
  I suppose the question is here, who is the more incompetent manager, the machine or the human
  - smt88 2y ago
    The problem with a machine isn't that it's sometimes incompetent, it's that it can't be reasoned with in the face of a deteriorating situation
    - saalweachter 2y ago
      I _suspect_ that those 8 door-dashers were not compensated for being sent to a restaurant to pick up an already-delivered order, because they failed to complete the delivery.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  I've met people like that but usually after the third time something doesn't work they pause and reassess.
tigerlily 2y ago
Hell is other row-butts.
waveBidder 2y ago
reminds me of this article https://scholars-stage.org/uber-is-a-poor-replacement-for-utopia/ https://scholars-stage.org/uber-is-a-poor-replacement-for-ut...
wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
If it was japanese workers in japan at a japanese store you wouldnt see it as slavery. It would be just a funny bug that would needs fixing. There is probably a racial component to your perception that doesnt need to be there.
- Eldt 2y ago
  You seem to be making a wild leap in logic here?
  - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
    i dont think so. I live in japan and I dont see this political slave talk here ever. its a western guilt thing.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      You have completely missed the point. It is not that 'people who work in Mexican restaurants are enslaved' it's that 'restaurant workers and delivery drivers are forced to work for nothing due to a software glitch' The kind of cuisine is irrelevant.
    - mcv 2y ago
      It's a dehumanizing thing.
- tlhunter 2y ago
  What are you talking about?
- alwa 2y ago
  If this were set in Japan as you propose, and we substituted “onigiri stall” or “izakaya” for “Mexican restaurant,” would that affect the substance of the gp’s observation? To my mind, when gp said “Mexican restaurant,” that conjured a familiar image of a particular type of informal, moderately sized, sit-in-and-delivery kind of establishment that’s probably a small business rather than managed as a corporate chain. And I wouldn’t assume that a Mexican restaurant is necessarily staffed by people of Mexican ancestry. I do feel like, in my limited exposure to Japanese culture, I hear less worry than I do from Americans about problems on this spectrum of individual economic freedom/empowerment <—> enslavement. But that’s an observation in which I’m very far from confident—I’d be curious to hear how it fits (or doesn’t) with the broader point you’re making.
wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
if the same circumstance happend due to human clerical error by a local delivery shop would you consider it enslavement or just an honest mistake. I think theres a weird tribal alignment angle in your interpretation of the scenario. You consider computers and machines to be an other, and so in this circumstance youre mind is framing it as subjugation.
- mindslight 2y ago
  The problem isn't computers being considered an "other", but rather that other people are using computers to unilaterally scale up the implementation of their own negligence/biases/"policy" while also insulating themselves from corrective feedback or other repercussions. This makes poor results feel willful rather than being considered honest mistakes.
  - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
    The first part isnt really an assertion of fact but of perspective. Consider if the delivery logistics tracking was executed by men working with paper in an office in the 1920's, and the policy was a managers. That is still "unilateral" as people who are not the manager dont have control over the policy, nor necessarily the capital to create a competitor policy. Additionally, there is corrective feedback. This errant policy costs the delivery company reputation, sales, time, customers. In so far as the error signal isnt so small as to be buried under the noise floor, in which case it isnt a very serious issue, its repurcussions will be felt.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      Your first part is relying on some assertion that scale makes no difference, when the whole crux of the matter is that it does. If a person bumps into you on the sidewalk, you will give them the benefit of the doubt. If that person has done it to a bunch of other people, you likely won't have as much tolerance. If that person is being paid to get in your way (eg using social engineering to put trashvertisements in people's hands), you likely won't have any. Your second part is channeling the efficient market fallacy, and then tautologically writing off "small" problems as not important enough. But once again, the problem is the scale itself. Something that hurts 0.01% of customers/users is never going to move the needle of organizational feedback, but at a scale of ten million customers/users that is still 1000 people that get hurt. Human scale limits fan out and allows direct feedback, surveillance industry scale does neither.
swat535 2y ago
It's fascinating and deeply unsettling that corporate policies now extend into people's daily lives, dictating their _literal_ physical movements through an always on tracking devices. In this case, it goes even further. A faceless corporate entity not only monitors movements but also _automates_ performance scoring and should these metrics decline, another automated system steps in to close accounts, freeze funds, or punish the person in a different manner. The sheer dystopian nature of it is hard to ignore..
wruza 2y ago
It is not an app or delivery service that enslaves humans. Politicians and lobbists do. Working in delivery doesn’t have to be modern day slavery with no viable escape routes for many. All an app does is limiting interaction between parties involved, which may be stupid but not enslaving.
h2zizzle 2y ago
This has happened to me. I can't remember the explanation, but the solution for deliverypeople caught by it is kind of fun. Ideally, the restaurant will just remake the order, but if they won't, it's sometimes advantageous to just pay for a second iteration of the order and deliver that. You see, at this point, the platform will have run up the delivery fee considerably, trying to get the order delivered - often to considerably above the cost of the food (that's why so many people were taking it). I'm sure this could backfire if the platform decides to cancel the order in-transit, but it might be worth risking if the fee is high enough (or if you'd eat the food yourself if you could no longer deliver it).

FirmwareBurner 2y ago

There was that pharmacy/market that had a wheeled robot patrolling the isles looking for spills, and the bot would call a human wagie to come mop it up.

disqard 2y ago
You might like (or hate) to check out Eric Sadin's "Injunctive turn of Technology"

democracy 2y ago

An incompetent manager would also do the job )

elicksaur 2y ago
Why does someone always have to chime in “But humans can be bad, too!” We shouldn’t advertise for these companies by denigrating other people. The app economy sucks.
- iinnPP 2y ago
  Because it's an important reminder that it doesn't need to be perfect to replace you.
- pj_mukh 2y ago
  I don't know man, somebody mentioned complete outlier "dystopian" machine behavior. For every one of those, I've eaten at 10 restaurants with the delivery line absolutely swamped with orders and deliveries happening like the clockwork of an assembly line. I wish the restaurants and delivery drivers made more money in the exchange but none of that is the machines fault (AI doesn't set Doordash's margins). At the end of it all, humans are mostly responsible for other humans' misery. No AI required.
- 8note 2y ago
  the apps only do what people tell them to do. the same executives that push the manager to be bad are the ones pushing for the apps to be bad. the apps arent bad in and of themselves. couch surfing and warm showers arent putting in exhorbitant cleaning fees.
agumonkey 2y ago
silicon valley invented managerless misery without even knowing
aussieguy1234 2y ago
I suppose the question is here, who is the more incompetent manager, the machine or the human
- smt88 2y ago
  The problem with a machine isn't that it's sometimes incompetent, it's that it can't be reasoned with in the face of a deteriorating situation
  - saalweachter 2y ago
    I _suspect_ that those 8 door-dashers were not compensated for being sent to a restaurant to pick up an already-delivered order, because they failed to complete the delivery.
anigbrowl 2y ago
I've met people like that but usually after the third time something doesn't work they pause and reassess.

tigerlily 2y ago

Hell is other row-butts.

waveBidder 2y ago

reminds me of this article https://scholars-stage.org/uber-is-a-poor-replacement-for-utopia/ https://scholars-stage.org/uber-is-a-poor-replacement-for-ut...

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago

If it was japanese workers in japan at a japanese store you wouldnt see it as slavery. It would be just a funny bug that would needs fixing. There is probably a racial component to your perception that doesnt need to be there.

Eldt 2y ago
You seem to be making a wild leap in logic here?
- wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
  i dont think so. I live in japan and I dont see this political slave talk here ever. its a western guilt thing.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    You have completely missed the point. It is not that 'people who work in Mexican restaurants are enslaved' it's that 'restaurant workers and delivery drivers are forced to work for nothing due to a software glitch' The kind of cuisine is irrelevant.
  - mcv 2y ago
    It's a dehumanizing thing.
tlhunter 2y ago
What are you talking about?
alwa 2y ago
If this were set in Japan as you propose, and we substituted “onigiri stall” or “izakaya” for “Mexican restaurant,” would that affect the substance of the gp’s observation? To my mind, when gp said “Mexican restaurant,” that conjured a familiar image of a particular type of informal, moderately sized, sit-in-and-delivery kind of establishment that’s probably a small business rather than managed as a corporate chain. And I wouldn’t assume that a Mexican restaurant is necessarily staffed by people of Mexican ancestry. I do feel like, in my limited exposure to Japanese culture, I hear less worry than I do from Americans about problems on this spectrum of individual economic freedom/empowerment <—> enslavement. But that’s an observation in which I’m very far from confident—I’d be curious to hear how it fits (or doesn’t) with the broader point you’re making.

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago

if the same circumstance happend due to human clerical error by a local delivery shop would you consider it enslavement or just an honest mistake. I think theres a weird tribal alignment angle in your interpretation of the scenario. You consider computers and machines to be an other, and so in this circumstance youre mind is framing it as subjugation.

mindslight 2y ago
The problem isn't computers being considered an "other", but rather that other people are using computers to unilaterally scale up the implementation of their own negligence/biases/"policy" while also insulating themselves from corrective feedback or other repercussions. This makes poor results feel willful rather than being considered honest mistakes.
- wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
  The first part isnt really an assertion of fact but of perspective. Consider if the delivery logistics tracking was executed by men working with paper in an office in the 1920's, and the policy was a managers. That is still "unilateral" as people who are not the manager dont have control over the policy, nor necessarily the capital to create a competitor policy. Additionally, there is corrective feedback. This errant policy costs the delivery company reputation, sales, time, customers. In so far as the error signal isnt so small as to be buried under the noise floor, in which case it isnt a very serious issue, its repurcussions will be felt.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    Your first part is relying on some assertion that scale makes no difference, when the whole crux of the matter is that it does. If a person bumps into you on the sidewalk, you will give them the benefit of the doubt. If that person has done it to a bunch of other people, you likely won't have as much tolerance. If that person is being paid to get in your way (eg using social engineering to put trashvertisements in people's hands), you likely won't have any. Your second part is channeling the efficient market fallacy, and then tautologically writing off "small" problems as not important enough. But once again, the problem is the scale itself. Something that hurts 0.01% of customers/users is never going to move the needle of organizational feedback, but at a scale of ten million customers/users that is still 1000 people that get hurt. Human scale limits fan out and allows direct feedback, surveillance industry scale does neither.

swat535 2y ago

It's fascinating and deeply unsettling that corporate policies now extend into people's daily lives, dictating their _literal_ physical movements through an always on tracking devices. In this case, it goes even further. A faceless corporate entity not only monitors movements but also _automates_ performance scoring and should these metrics decline, another automated system steps in to close accounts, freeze funds, or punish the person in a different manner. The sheer dystopian nature of it is hard to ignore..

wruza 2y ago

It is not an app or delivery service that enslaves humans. Politicians and lobbists do. Working in delivery doesn’t have to be modern day slavery with no viable escape routes for many. All an app does is limiting interaction between parties involved, which may be stupid but not enslaving.

h2zizzle 2y ago

This has happened to me. I can't remember the explanation, but the solution for deliverypeople caught by it is kind of fun. Ideally, the restaurant will just remake the order, but if they won't, it's sometimes advantageous to just pay for a second iteration of the order and deliver that. You see, at this point, the platform will have run up the delivery fee considerably, trying to get the order delivered - often to considerably above the cost of the food (that's why so many people were taking it). I'm sure this could backfire if the platform decides to cancel the order in-transit, but it might be worth risking if the fee is high enough (or if you'd eat the food yourself if you could no longer deliver it).