Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–146 of 146 posts

Re: You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

#141

Post by Gigachad »

rtkwe wrote: post #77
jordanb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is this was the pitch for buying clothes online: worried it won't fit? Just return it. No questions asked! We'll even pay return shipping! It's interesting how companies are now redefining things they explicitly encouraged their customers to do as "abuse."

Well we don't know that they're talking about clothes at all. Clothing retailers are still pretty open about returns afaik because it's kind of the only way to run an online clothes store people will actually use.

From what I've heard, most returns just get binned. Its terribly sad how wasteful online shopping is.

Re: You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

#142

Post by Gareth321 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #80
cael450 wrote: post #67

My wife works in autism services. Insurance companies are the bane of her existence. Every six months (sometimes less), she has to write a huge report justifying services. These reports are frequently over 100 pages and she is only slotted so much time to do it, so she ends up doing a ton of unpaid work. The entire business model is to drown the practitioner in paperwork then use “peer reviewers” who are nurses that…

From time to time, I see similar claims like this on HN: "doing a ton of unpaid work". The full quote: > These reports are frequently over 100 pages and she is only slotted so much time to do it, so she ends up doing a ton of unpaid work. What if she refuses to do the work unpaid? This seems like an open-and-shut case with the US Dept of Labour. There is a whole page that explains how to make a claim here: https://ww…

> What if she refuses to do the work unpaid?

Depending on the competition for her job and the state laws, she would either be put onto a performance management program, or fired. I've been through this before. The HR approved response is that they expect those 100-page reports to be complete within normal working hours, and a failure to achieve that means you are unable to fulfill the requirements of the job.

Of course those in high demand who can easily move to better employers will often do so. However there is a lot of friction when moving jobs. It's very time consuming, mentally demanding, and risky. I've seen incredibly talented staff treated awfully in my years, and they refuse to leave for various reasons.

Re: You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

#143

Post by spwa4 »

seethishat wrote: post #37
hilariously wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should. It's their fault for picking a bad vendor. It's their fault for not finding someone with taste to solve the problem. Fundamentally its their business, pretending you can blame someone else for your ultimate accountability is stupid. Nobody is forcing you to take poison, and saying "Well Microsoft promised me it isn't poison!!!" at this point, decades into it selling poison, doesn't make much sense.

They didn't pick the bad vendor, the herd did. They all go to the same conferences, attend the same vendor lunches and buy the same garbage. And today, most of the IT managers are not technical at all. They have art degrees and have never been technology practitioners. Literally anyone off the street can be a "decision maker" in technology today. Just buy what everyone else is buying and collect a huge paycheck while…

No ... THEY very much did. In fact the whole idea of their job is that they are responsible for the outcomes. Seriously. Listen to their speeches. That gets repeated and repeated and repeated, again and again and again.

Of course, if insurance companies were rapidly held to account by courts, a core function of the courts if there ever was one, there would be no problem here.

Which is probably why most governments are defunding the courts.

Re: You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

#144

Post by spwa4 »

voncheese wrote: post #70
dpoloncsak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision. You can't 'blame' the AI, as it can't be held accountable.

The interesting thing about AI v. other disruptive technologies (like the internet, steam engine, etc), is that AI has been personified both by the manufacturers of it (Anthropic being the most blatant by using a human name for its product) and users. That makes it way more likely that people blame AI (doesn't make it right by any means, but does mean that the actual blame gets diffused even more).

How is that a problem? That makes it far worse for companies, after all. If an employee of a company makes a mistake then the consequences are:

1) employee was willingly sabotaging the company: employee gets jail time plus fine, employer is on the hook financially

2) employee was involved either in accident or just made a stupid decision: employer is on the hook financially

So if that's the case, then employers are financially responsible for everything the AI they use says. That's the rule for employees.

Note: this is different from, say if a company uses a car and it just starts by itself and drives into the next door warehouse setting it on fire (ie. some sort of designed-in decision/issue) : in that case the maker of the car is responsible, both financially and criminally, even if an employee or even the boss/owner/everyone at the company were involved.

Of course, guaranteed that governments will change this the first time a court makes this obvious connection. Why do I think that?

Well, for example, the UK government changed the rule when it turned out the post-office's written software (written by contractors, under post office and thus government responsibility and accountability) decided to cause incredible damage by blaming innocent people for stealing. Then, a special law was voted that in that specific case it didn't apply, and the government department, nor any of it's employees, were responsible.

Just like, for example, Pennsylvania changed the rules for unwittingly-but-directly aiding criminal activity when it turned out half the Pennsylvania government was complicit in the kids-for-cash scandal (because in that case, normally, you wouldn't be criminally liable, but you WOULD be liable for any financial damage you do)

Re: You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

#145

Post by rtkwe »

Gigachad wrote: post #141
rtkwe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we don't know that they're talking about clothes at all. Clothing retailers are still pretty open about returns afaik because it's kind of the only way to run an online clothes store people will actually use.

From what I've heard, most returns just get binned. Its terribly sad how wasteful online shopping is.

I think that depends a lot on the industry. There's a lot of evidence Amazon is recycling "unopened" returns into the new stock pool because people are getting sealed items with their contents replaced because it turns out it's not that hard to shrink wrap items well enough to convince an overworked return intake employee.

Some also gets diverted into return resale stores where companies like Amazon will sell a 3rd party a pallet of miscellaneous returns they then sell.

Re: You Know Who Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters

#146

Post by throwaway2037 »

Gareth321 wrote: post #142
throwaway2037 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From time to time, I see similar claims like this on HN: "doing a ton of unpaid work". The full quote: > These reports are frequently over 100 pages and she is only slotted so much time to do it, so she ends up doing a ton of unpaid work. What if she refuses to do the work unpaid? This seems like an open-and-shut case with the US Dept of Labour. There is a whole page that explains how to make a claim here: https://ww…

> What if she refuses to do the work unpaid? Depending on the competition for her job and the state laws, she would either be put onto a performance management program, or fired. I've been through this before. The HR approved response is that they expect those 100-page reports to be complete within normal working hours, and a failure to achieve that means you are unable to fulfill the requirements of the job. Of cour…

If enough people are fired for this reason and file complaints with DoL (US Dept of Labor), then surely the DoL will open a case against the company for unpaid wages. If I recall correctly, for a while, Amazon used to force staff to arrive early (before shifts) but did not pay them for it. DoL got involved and the rules changed. To be clear: It is difficult, but not impossible, to make labor practices change with the help of DoL.

EDIT

This part should have appeared first: I agree that your scenario is the most likely outcome, even if I think it is reprehensible!

Post reply on HN