This seems sort of meaningless since supply/demand is the ultimate ai. Does this effectively mandate price controls? If so thank fucking GOD
Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
111–120 of 259 posts
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#112This is like responding to symptoms and not addressing the root cause. This is something that should be fixed by supply and demand, buyers should have a choice where to buy and sellers should have a choice how to price their products. These problems arise when dealing with a monopoly, that undermines the free market and that's a far worse systemic problem and the root cause of these issues. AI has nothing to do with…
There is an imbalance in leverage and timing though. Dynamic pricing requires a lot of real time and historical data; companies can access and share that information easily, and you as a consumer cannot. Even in areas with multiple competitors, they can (and do) effectively collude by getting their information through data brokers and third parties. I don't have a solution, but we are currently very far away from a f…
When I was at that tender age when many nerdy boys read and fall to Atlas Shrugged I read The Pearl by Steinbeck. Which has a passage I never forgot.
“It was supposed that the pearl buyers were individuals acting alone, bidding against one another for the pearls the fishermen brought in. And once it had been so. But this was a wasteful method, for often, in the excitement of bidding for a fine pearl, too great a price had been paid to the fisherman. This was extravagant and not to be countenanced. Now there was only one pearl buyer with many hands"
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country. the reason why there aren't pitchforks is also because the US is a much richer country than Europe so people are happy to pay for more healthcare. if you are rich, the marginal value of money vs more time being alive is zero (an example is orthapedics for the elderly, the US spends a huge amount in this area relative to most European co…
> the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country In which metric(s)? Afaik, life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe. And Americans are known to pay much more than Europeans on healthcare, on average.
> life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe
Could be more tied to poor diet and lifestyle, and not the healthcare system itself.
Like if you sit on the chair all day on your remote job, then move to the couch for after-work Netflix and PS5, while you drink soda and eat processed food, then the only time you leave your house is you drive your Tesla/F-150 to Walmart and McDonald's, there's no magic healthcare system in the world that can undo decades of self inflicted damage.
Meanwhile people in some impoverished balkan town could end up living longer because they spend their entire lives moving outdoor all day in fresh air and only eat organic what they grow on their plot of land, even if their hospitals and healthcare systems are significantly worse than what americans have.
There's way more variables to life expectancy than just the healthcare system.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an imbalance in leverage and timing though. Dynamic pricing requires a lot of real time and historical data; companies can access and share that information easily, and you as a consumer cannot. Even in areas with multiple competitors, they can (and do) effectively collude by getting their information through data brokers and third parties. I don't have a solution, but we are currently very far away from a f…
When the government actively decides the price of goods and services, it becomes more and more like communism. The government should instead uphold the free market and proactively prevent collusion and monopolies that threaten the free market, this is harder to do in the US because of lobbying though.
Slogans and bromides are good starting points but not solutions.
The government IS preventing coordinated price setting by closing the loophole of third party data brokers.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, surveillance pricing is used to get the maximum out of the customer, not the opposite. This needs to be illegal. If anything surveillance pricing will make the retail business MORE like the health care system, because the latter already employs these tactics: the unhealthier you are, the more you pay. Same thing as surveillance pricing. It's a fundamental shift from: "I sell this product for the cheapest price po…
> the unhealthier you are, the more you pay. I'd re-write that as "the more you consume the more you pay". Seems normal.
In most industries, especially in electronics and computers, the more you consume, the less you pay.
Companies like Google or Amazon pay for a server computer only a small fraction of the price I would have to pay to buy it.
Similarly for any electronics or computing device or component. The same is true for any food ingredient. I can buy some spice by the kilogram at a price an order of magnitude lower than when I buy 10 grams of it.
If the same were applied in healthcare, someone with a chronic disease should pay much less for the same drug, in comparison with someone with an acute disease.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#116Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding US healthcare costs, I cannot understand why people are not in the streets with pitchforks. Most of Europe has this problem solved. What is the root cause w.r.t. the current situation? Are there any obvious ways out? Do any US politicians have any plans for a change? Are there any discussed proposals how to reform?
> Most of Europe has this problem solved. With paracetamol :) (Dutch people know what I am talking about)
For those of us who aren't Dutch, please enlighten
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is possible in retail, or will soon be. Canada's major grocery chain has migrated entirely to LCD price tagging that can receive OTA updates. There are now no paper price labels in the store. The same chains have extensive camera coverage on the entrance / exits of the store. So pricing can be an optimization function as fine grained as persons currently in the store . Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce t…
The electronic shel labels use e-ink. Their refresh time is around 30 seconds. What happens if two shoppers are looking at the same product?
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Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not. alex43578 was shifting the goalposts from the point cogman10 was making; I acknowledged what he said, but it was besides the point. An airline charging differently depending on the time ahead of flight is sensible. An airline charging differently depending on the buyer's home address is discrimination.
You said "charging two people for the same route differently" is bad: airlines do that constantly and that's why there's dozens of fare changes, fare buckets, sales, codeshares, etc. Regardless, the bigger point is that businesses already have a ton of levers to move for pricing: sales, loyalty programs, and regular price adjustments. None of those are considered discrimination. Why does the buyer's home address fall…
I suppose you are misunderstanding me on purpose, but let me try again in very clear terms anyway: Offering the same service or product (a specific flight if you will, a chunk of butter of the same brand in the same store at the same time) to two independent customers at different prices based on prior knowledge about them unrelated to the specific good or service is fundamentally unjust.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country. the reason why there aren't pitchforks is also because the US is a much richer country than Europe so people are happy to pay for more healthcare. if you are rich, the marginal value of money vs more time being alive is zero (an example is orthapedics for the elderly, the US spends a huge amount in this area relative to most European co…
> the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country In which metric(s)? Afaik, life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe. And Americans are known to pay much more than Europeans on healthcare, on average.
It's "bigger" in the sense it spends more money per capita. Something very American exceptionalist about the OP suggesting that this is somehow more relevant than it covering fewer people and treatments.