The Machine Fired Me • Hacker News Board

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#391

Post by ForRealsies » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

letsgetphysITal wrote: post #269

vvanders wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That show was incredibly on the mark, if Black Mirror was a comedy it would have been that show. The episode about the black engineer who isn't detected by the motion sensors is basically straight out of HP's webcam fiasco[1](although the show takes it to the logical and hilarious extreme). [1] http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2009/12/hp-webcam-c...

This has been a real problem with facial recognition. Faces used to train engines are typically Caucasian, so the ability to distinguish other ethnicities is quite sub-par. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/the-u...

I imagine China has fixed that problem, given their present day "1984-esque" surveillance tech.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#392

Post by greedo » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

A new coworker was hired on my team 6 months ago. Someone in HR inadvertently entered the wrong age on his employee record (he's in his early 40's, and they had him as 72). This lead to denial of life insurance coverage that took until this month to resolve.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#393

Post by greedo » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #186

bonyt wrote: post #161

This is literally an episode of Better Off Ted.[1] In it, the titular Ted is inadvertenly deleted from the company system when trying to correct a misspelling of his last name. Eventually, he is forced to interview for his own job as the system had already put out an ad for his replacement. I think the most striking part of it, and of the true story from the post, is the human factor - the idea that the humans involv…

Reminds me of Frank Herbert's ominous (fictional) prophecy: “Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Time for Mentats! The Butlerian Jihad seemed so unrealistic when I first read Dune, but now it seems prophetic.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#394

Post by TuringNYC » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:16 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #351

DanBC wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The racism comes from saying "We recognise human faces" and then not recognising a significant proportion of humans.

That's not racism, that's laziness. Or perhaps just being a bad engineer, if you want to be more cynical about it. It's not that hard to find both conscious and subconscious examples of systemic or individual racism. Engineers taking the easy path with webcam facial recognition is probably not a good one and serves only to give more fuel to those who claim people jump to the racism cry too quickly.

It is racism to realize the negative aspects to other races, nevertheless pitch it as universally functional, and push the cost/pain to other races. Laziness is some of it, some of it is the realization that only other races bear the brunt of the cost.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#395

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:16 PM UTC

daxelrod wrote: post #381

krzat wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if western culture has similiar quirks that we don't even realise.

“How are you?” “Good” Tons of people have this exchange out of politeness. The person asking “How are you?” doesn’t really want to know details. The person answering is expected to be brief and positive. It’s only among friends that the same question is expected to get an honest and detailed answer.

Brief yes, but nothing about the question suggests they want details. As long as you're not making things too personal you can answer non-positively.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#396

Post by jexah » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #313

jexah wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really blaming the wrong people. Blame the doctor for screwing it up, your wife for not checking the prescription, or the government for creating/enforcing the relevant laws that would have put not only the chemist but their entire franchise underground for "doing the right thing". Laws are laws, broskie, don't expect everybody to break them for you. If the migraine was really bad (bad enough to cause tangible…

So in effect he's right to suggest the pharmacist should just be replaced by a robot because you would have them follow the rules no matter what with all humanity stripped out. If there was more than one pharmacist available it wouldn't have killed him/her to go and take a look at the wife in the car.

It doesn't matter if the pharmacist thinks -- or even knows -- that they are doing the "right thing", pharmacists cannot prescribe medications. Their life would be over in a heartbeat if anybody ever found out that he or she legally provided a drug to somebody without a prescription. Additionally, pharmacists should use their best judgement to deny valid prescriptions, similar to how a bartender would use their best judgement to not sell alcohol to a customer.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#397

Post by vinceguidry » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:30 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #328

maaark wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misread the article. The author's contract hadn't even ACTUALLY expired. The end date was wrong on the system. That doesn't actually affect his contract.

The article says that his former boss, who left the company, neglected to file the paperwork on extending his contract. There was intent to extend, and everyone thought that’s what happened, except for the fact that it didn’t actually happen.

There's the contract that was signed, and then there's the HR documentation as it appears in the system. The contract was signed, but the HR documentation wasn't.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#398

Post by gaius » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #294

gaius wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am normally big on Solidarity with fellow Workers but the humans in this loop really should be automated away, because they knew what they were doing was a mistake and did it anyway, so what value were they adding? In fact they were worse than automation because at least that can be debugged, but there is no fix for the bureaucratic mindset. Especially since you could tell them to stop and they would say "yes" and…

>you could tell them to stop and they would say "yes" and then carry on anyway... // This was discussed/commented on at length a couple of weeks ago. In Indian culture, apparently, the "yes" is like a verbal tick - kinda - and just acknowledges you've spoken without giving any commitment to doing anything (nor indeed indicating any level of understanding).

I bet you could ask “was that a lie?” and get the answer “yes” too...

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#399

Post by mozumder » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

rando444 wrote: post #380

mozumder wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black Mirror IS a comedy. Nothing in it is realistic. Don't take it seriously.

Just because nothing in it is realistic, does not make it a comedy.

Just because two sentences are next to each other, does not make it conditional on the first.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#400

Post by falcolas » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

arglebarnacle wrote: post #208

eridius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple explanation: they did in fact see what you were doing and just didn't want to tell you because they don't want to teach cheaters how to evade bans. They were hoping after the first review that you would start playing by the rules.

Well I wasn't cheating in any way, just using the auction house/trade chat much more than a typical new account because most of my MMO experience was in EVE online and I like the "economic PVP" of cornering markets and flipping for a profit. Some cursory research told me that new accounts with a lot of market activity were a "red flag" for the automated system due to similarity with bots that created new accounts to…

So, based on past experience and the experiences of others - that is bannable behavior to them. They don't want people playing the AH on items - they certainly don't want people cornering a market - they just want a simple method for people to trade goods for gold.

Yours is simply the latest in a line of those who have followed the letter of their Auction House rules, but not the nebulous and unwritten "spirit".