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California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

newyorker.com

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Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#81

Post by mprev »

jlangenauer wrote: post #69

I am reminded of Thoreau's quote: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." The root of the problem is not that we have bots, but that we have normalised lying and deception as part of everyday business. We allow companies to pretend that bots are human beings, and allow call-center employees in third-world countries to pretend (even sometimes though elaborate lying) t…

Not disagreeing but at least the Australian ad authority is actually dealing with the Samsung case.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#83

Post by dorgo »

luckylion wrote: post #43
dessant wrote: post #22

I felt stupid, but I have fallen victim to this on dpd.com while tracking a package. A helpful chat popup has appeared where I could request assistance from a support agent, but it was not disclosed that the agent is a bot. Needless to say I have spent a couple of minutes repeatedly asking a question, and even rephrasing it while being frustrated that this person does not seem to grasp my issue.

AliExpress does this as well and in an annoying manner that I consider insulting. Support chat will start with a useless bot that just looks for keywords and then replies with FAQ links. "Escalate to a service agent" will make you wait for 30-45 seconds to then be greeted by "Anna" or some other human name. It's another bot, with typing-delay and will follow a simple script to keep you busy, low quality and no appare…

I'm curious. Are you complaining about support not beeing able to solve your issue, or about talking to bots instead of humans? Assume a strong AI with enough authority would handle support. Would you still prefer humans?

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#84

Post by bufferoverflow »

sdoering wrote: post #62
throwaway13337 wrote: post #60

California is setting a dangerous precident. If individual states each enact individual laws governing the internet, then only large companies will have the resources to follow them. We'll see a balkanization of the web wherein it's no longer very world wide. Small internet businesses will become harder and harder to start. Big monopolies will become entrenched. It's not pretty.

Or companies start acting like a sane person would. Not outsourcing communication to a bot without disclosure for example. And do so globally. Or taking the European GDPR regulations as an example actually caring a little bit more about the user' data and enabling informed consent.

GDPR is absolutely insane. I was working on a European website where a user would upload a product info along with a photo of the product. I had to abandon it, because I'd have to somehow filter all uploaded content for copyright and other violations, as I'd be liable under this new law.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#85

Post by dorgo »

sushid wrote: post #59
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #9

That will be a fun one to interpret. So if I use autocorrect, am I a bot? What if the device makes next word suggestions and I use them? What if the device suggests the entire post, but I manually approve it? What if it suggests five separate posts and I approve them all at once?

I'm not sure why you're being so facetious. In fact, I wonder why HN always has comments like these. Lawmakers are purposefully vague because judges can decipher what the spirit of the law is and fine corporations or condone specific use cases when they are brought up in court. You can't go into court to challenge a law with hypothetical cases for a good reason. Do you want lawmakers to arbitrarily impose constraints…

>I wonder why HN always has comments like these

It's a work related disease. A coder must consider all corner cases in advance. There is no judge to decipher the spirit of a program.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#86

Post by luckylion »

dorgo wrote: post #83
luckylion wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AliExpress does this as well and in an annoying manner that I consider insulting. Support chat will start with a useless bot that just looks for keywords and then replies with FAQ links. "Escalate to a service agent" will make you wait for 30-45 seconds to then be greeted by "Anna" or some other human name. It's another bot, with typing-delay and will follow a simple script to keep you busy, low quality and no appare…

I'm curious. Are you complaining about support not beeing able to solve your issue, or about talking to bots instead of humans? Assume a strong AI with enough authority would handle support. Would you still prefer humans?

If it could, I wouldn't mind. It didn't, and then went into a loop allowing me to "escalate" it to a real human which turned out to be the same bot, only with a different name.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#87

Post by random_moonwalk »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #84
sdoering wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or companies start acting like a sane person would. Not outsourcing communication to a bot without disclosure for example. And do so globally. Or taking the European GDPR regulations as an example actually caring a little bit more about the user' data and enabling informed consent.

GDPR is absolutely insane. I was working on a European website where a user would upload a product info along with a photo of the product. I had to abandon it, because I'd have to somehow filter all uploaded content for copyright and other violations, as I'd be liable under this new law.

Ah, I think you're referring to the recent EU copyright directive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...) rather than GDPR.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#88

Post by sundvor »

mprev wrote: post #81
jlangenauer wrote: post #69

I am reminded of Thoreau's quote: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." The root of the problem is not that we have bots, but that we have normalised lying and deception as part of everyday business. We allow companies to pretend that bots are human beings, and allow call-center employees in third-world countries to pretend (even sometimes though elaborate lying) t…

Not disagreeing but at least the Australian ad authority is actually dealing with the Samsung case.

Basically they've warrantied their phones for chlorine or salt water immersion now here in Australia. They won't be refusing warranty claims for related damage.

Minor PSA: If you ever immerse your IP68 rated device in anything other than water, make sure to give it a rinse in water ASAP. Preferably not too high pressure water either.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#90

Post by nfoz »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #60

California is setting a dangerous precident. If individual states each enact individual laws governing the internet, then only large companies will have the resources to follow them. We'll see a balkanization of the web wherein it's no longer very world wide. Small internet businesses will become harder and harder to start. Big monopolies will become entrenched. It's not pretty.

This worst-case web would still support all of the original use-cases of the web, where ordinary folks and organizations were posting ordinary documents that anyone anywhere in the world could view.

It's small-business webapps that have problems. But I would be very glad for those to stop doing so many terribly sketchy things that have become the norm on this consumer-unfriendly internet we're dealing with.

So like I'm super afraid of a "regulated internet", but I'm also super sad by what's happened while it's been unregulated. Businesses, governments, even ICANN have done terrible things to the internet. I'm not very optimistic for any outcome anymore.

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