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How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

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Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#41

Post by drzaiusapelord »

anigbrowl wrote: post #11

If you need to send out 200 personalized letters to sales leads but haven’t got the time to handwrite them yourself — or if your handwriting is, like mine, grotesque — then Maillift will generate them for you, using teams of genuinely carbon-based people. That's horrible! I don't mind getting a printed letter but if I got a handwritten letter that I later found out was faked I would never, ever do business with that…

DirecTV and credit card companies do this to me all the time. I'll receive a letter that looks like some kind of greeting card or invite with no identifier but an address. The font used on the outside mimicks human handwriting, so it looks authentic if you're not really paying attention.

I kinda get excited I'm getting invited to something, I open it up, and its a fucking ad.

I don't understand how people do business with businesses that mislead you like this. I mean, if they think of you so little before you're a customer, imagine how badly they will treat you when you are one.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#42

Post by GrinningFool »

I recently had a horrible experience getting a home mortgage, and when invited to leave feedback I did so - politely, but sparing no feelings.

In response, I received a form-letter generic apology with a stamped signature. The numeric code at the very bottom of the letter (and the fact that it didn't address any specific issue I'd raised) gave it away, though I had to squint to determine that the signature wasn't legit.

I don't know which bothers me more: the fact that they didn't actually care enough to write a genuine response, or that the get enough disgruntled customers that they have a standard apology letter ready to go.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#43

Post by zvm »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #41
anigbrowl wrote: post #11

If you need to send out 200 personalized letters to sales leads but haven’t got the time to handwrite them yourself — or if your handwriting is, like mine, grotesque — then Maillift will generate them for you, using teams of genuinely carbon-based people. That's horrible! I don't mind getting a printed letter but if I got a handwritten letter that I later found out was faked I would never, ever do business with that…

DirecTV and credit card companies do this to me all the time. I'll receive a letter that looks like some kind of greeting card or invite with no identifier but an address. The font used on the outside mimicks human handwriting, so it looks authentic if you're not really paying attention. I kinda get excited I'm getting invited to something, I open it up, and its a fucking ad. I don't understand how people do business…

I've noticed the dead give away for those is that they come with a "Pre-sorted Standard" stamp instead of the first class postage that most personal mail uses.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#44

Post by bambax »

What about stamps though? Real letters from real people have stamps that are glued on in an odd position; junk mail (or any automated mail) has the postage directly printed on the envelope.

It's certainly possible to automate the sticking of stamps, but won't all those operations needed to "look real" increase the cost of junk mail in unsustainable proportions? Which is the point of course, from the receiver/victim point of view...

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#45

Post by DanBC »

philbarr wrote: post #15
vdaniuk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Marketing people" is one of the most egregious generalization errors on HN. It's certainly in vogue to hate on marketers but it is not an identity, marketer is a hat that people wear. Just stop.

Hating on "marketing people" isn't just an HN thing, I think. I'm fairly sure most people hate marketers, particularly because it's their job to try and part you from your money. In fact, on HN we are probably more lenient because we are some of the people that are interested in separating people from their cash.

I don't care that people are trying to part me from my money. Often I'm trying to get rid of it. {EDIT: whenever you buy anything you're trying to get rid of that bit of money. This is true for poor people as well.}

The hate for (some) marketers comes from the fact that some of them are fucking scum with bizarre feelings of entitlement.

"When those other companies do it then yes I guess it is spam but trust us you really want to read our unsolicited email".

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#46

Post by recursion1133 »

philbarr wrote: post #15
vdaniuk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Marketing people" is one of the most egregious generalization errors on HN. It's certainly in vogue to hate on marketers but it is not an identity, marketer is a hat that people wear. Just stop.

Hating on "marketing people" isn't just an HN thing, I think. I'm fairly sure most people hate marketers, particularly because it's their job to try and part you from your money. In fact, on HN we are probably more lenient because we are some of the people that are interested in separating people from their cash.

Interesting, I never thought of "hating on marketing" as a money defense system.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#47

Post by bambax »

Shouldn't marketers try the exact opposite approach?

In this paper about "Nigerian" mail fraud http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/whyfromnigeria.pdf

researchers argue that it's very efficient for attackers to appear fraudulent, because this helps select the most gullible victims (true positives) while weeding out "false positives": people who respond at first, but are not scammed in the end.

From the abstract:

> "Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor."

Shouldn't marketers do the same? Isn't it more efficient to eliminate non-targets as early as possible, instead of dragging into the process people who will ultimately relent. If so, it would seem preferable to send junk mail that is very explicitly junky.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#48

Post by GrinningFool »

philbarr wrote: post #15
vdaniuk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Marketing people" is one of the most egregious generalization errors on HN. It's certainly in vogue to hate on marketers but it is not an identity, marketer is a hat that people wear. Just stop.

Hating on "marketing people" isn't just an HN thing, I think. I'm fairly sure most people hate marketers, particularly because it's their job to try and part you from your money. In fact, on HN we are probably more lenient because we are some of the people that are interested in separating people from their cash.

It's more than it being their job to part you from your money. Because that's a salesperson's job too, and yet they don't receive the same animosity.

The difference is small but crucial. The salesperson's job is - for the most part - to sell to you personally. And the salesperson typically has a personal stake in it - so this is a transaction between two people.

On the other hand, it's the marketer's job to manipulate[1] you[2] into buying an idea and accepting it as your own. Nothing is off-limits - any psychological tactic that a marketer can employ is considered an acceptable means to the end. Astroturfing, deceptive advertising, "submarine" stories -- these are just the tip of the iceburg, and all of them are perfectly OK in the mind of the marketers under discussion.

Ultimately, it comes down to ethics - marketers seem to me to be like behavioral psychologists with no ethical guidelines that prevent them (or even discourage them) from playing out their experiments on people. And the experiments are all geared towards finding the most effective ways to exploit the way our minds work, to the benefit of the owner of the product or idea being marketed. [3]

I am aware that there are some who do have ethics, and apply them scrupulously. But in the marketing that surrounds us every day, I see no indication that they have any significant voice.

For those not familiar with Heinlein, some of the ideas raised in "If This Goes On..." are disturbingly relevant.

---

1. And this is the general "you", not typically one specific individual.

2. The salesperson, too, will naturally try to manipulate you - but a) it's typically an interaction between you and the salesperson. b) you can also use the same or similar tactics on the salesperson. c) foreknowledge of the tactics used by a salesperson are often enough to protect against their effectiveness - not so with marketing.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#49

Post by chc »

bambax wrote: post #47

Shouldn't marketers try the exact opposite approach? In this paper about "Nigerian" mail fraud http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/whyfromnigeria.pdf researchers argue that it's very efficient for attackers to appear fraudulent, because this helps select the most gullible victims (true positives) while weeding out "false positives": people who respond at first, but are not scammed in the end. From the abstract:…

It's unlikely that mortgage companies are deluged with bad leads because people thought the handwriting was legit. Weeding out false positives is only an issue if you have a false positive problem.

Re: How to tell when a robot has written you a letter

#50

Post by michaelbuckbee »

otherdave wrote: post #21
anigbrowl wrote: post #11

If you need to send out 200 personalized letters to sales leads but haven’t got the time to handwrite them yourself — or if your handwriting is, like mine, grotesque — then Maillift will generate them for you, using teams of genuinely carbon-based people. That's horrible! I don't mind getting a printed letter but if I got a handwritten letter that I later found out was faked I would never, ever do business with that…

What about when you get an email from a website you just signed up for that opens with "Hi, Anigbrowl! I saw that you signed up for my site..." and is "signed" by the CEO. If you found out that was an automated email and that the CEO didn't really type it up personally, would you be equally upset?

I have the opposite issue, I'm constantly sending out personal emails asking to help people with getting setup (it's for Heroku SSL stuff and people often misconfigure things) and can't get a response from them.
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