California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:00 PM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #119

wccrawford wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the article I read is true, they aren't honoring the warranty in the case of water damage.

Correct, my phone died after briefly exposing it to salt weather on a beach. I was misled by the ads I saw, there was no implication except in very fine print that saltwater will immediately fry your phone.

Well, frankly, fuck them. Last year on vacation I was this close to taking my phone to the sea with me, because obviously it's "waterproof" (as their marketing copy tells me). Only my wife reminded me that just because they say it is, doesn't mean it actually is, and especially doesn't mean I should risk my expensive phone to test that theory on vacation.

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

#142

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

kodz4 wrote: post #93

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…

Some part of the population is always going to use deception and weakness of others. I don't think there is a "general fix". You just have to constantly show them where the boundaries are and the cost of crossing them. Taking advantage of the expectation, that a general fix is possible, is what gets Charlatans and Panderers into power. That said, despite the fact that it has been easier to take advantage of the weakn…

> that same pace causes natural born predators to bump into each other more, clashing more frequently, expending more resources/energy in empire defense.

And that's a problem in this case, because it's not like any of the predators in ad industry actually dies. They just deliver less money for the parties that employed/contracted them.

Advertising has a different dynamic than regular predation, because in a saturated market, effort of any party serves only to cancel out the efforts of every other party. It's a zero-sum game that can consume near-infinite amount of energy and resources. Now think of all the man hours, electricity, fossil fuels, papers, paints, toxic chemicals and human dignity - all wasted in a zero sum game - and tell me again that advertisers "expending more resources/energy in empire defense" is a good thing. It's the opposite - it'll eat our economy and kill us through side effects of all the resource wastage.

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

#143

Post by ethbro » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #133

ethbro wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other issue with bots is whether a company's support is bot-only or human. Free choice and all, but without disclosure ( pre -purchase) a company shouldn't be able to "cost manage" their support function by using an algorithm fronted by chatbots.

Should they have to disclose that their phone system has an IVR before every purchase as well? That they use a third-party logistics provider to handle returns?

Utilizing algorithmic-only customer support seems far more impactful than those technologies, from a customer standpoint.

As Google and PayPal have shown, it's generally a cluster$&#* (at best), even with state of the art technologies.

Furthermore, it provides a fundamental shift in the power dynamic by removing the possibility of whistleblowers and ethical counterpressure. You literally have management as the sole arbiter of algorithmic settings, with (currently) no legal disclosure requirements as to any internals.

That seems pretty screwed up from a free-market, transparency perspective.

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

#144

Post by OrangeMango » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

karmelapple wrote: post #140

novok wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung isn’t the only one. Apple is similar too in its carve outs for water damage in it’s warranty. Im guessing samsung weasels out of it by saying water ‘resistance’ vs proof, but still marketing it with surfers and such? My water resistant series 3 apple watch screen died after swimming in a pool the next day to give a personal example.

Apple is pretty clear about its water performance: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205000 Sorry to hear about your watch. I’ve been lucky enough to have it in the water plenty and never have a problem. Maybe go to an Apple store?

I got a series 4 watch as a father's day gift and went swimming the following weekend. My watch went insane (it tried to dial 911 about 5 times and wouldn't accept any input to try to stop it) and then died. I took it to my local Apple store and they were rather stern about too much water and it probably being my fault, but sent it off to the repair center anyway. But... Apple sent a replacement via FedEx that arrived less than 48 hours later.

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

#145

Post by acdha » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #133

ethbro wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other issue with bots is whether a company's support is bot-only or human. Free choice and all, but without disclosure ( pre -purchase) a company shouldn't be able to "cost manage" their support function by using an algorithm fronted by chatbots.

Should they have to disclose that their phone system has an IVR before every purchase as well? That they use a third-party logistics provider to handle returns?

Only if they pretend that you're interacting with real people. An IVR is often bad customer service but it's clear what you're dealing with.

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

#146

Post by brownbat » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

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…

> allow call-center employees in third-world countries to pretend

I agree companies should be forced to tell the truth to their customers, but in all cases where they're asking for details about the customer service rep? That could go weird places.

If a caller demanded to know the rep's HIV status, we wouldn't insist the company disclose it. We'd probably demand they didn't. Honesty is important, ok, but the customer has no reasonable need to know that. So, ok, it's not as simple as "tell the customer everything." There are some judgment calls the company has to make about what's important to disclose and what is irrelevant. The service rep's race, religion, medical history, or sexual orientation are probably not up for discussion. Why not national origin?

This isn't just about fairness to the rep, but the majority of customers need the company to hold this line too. If some portion of the population strongly believes that foreign call centers are lower quality, are you going to get the best possible answers on a survey if you say, "this was a foreign call center, how was the quality?"

Disclosing irrelevant details can sabotage collection of unbiased information on call quality.

If customers as a whole want improved service quality, they'll want the company to be able to collect unbiased post-call survey results.

If call centers in country X are all terrible, unbiased surveys will reveal that. If it's really about training, and there are good and bad call centers in several different countries, unbiased surveys will reveal that too.

I know passions run deep on this one, and it's a hard case, but this one seems a little more complicated than the others.

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

#147

Post by acdha » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #126

acdha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a widespread problem in many areas but I do think there’s a strong argument that bots are worth singling out in the context of social networking, where the bots are often used to steer public opinion in non-obvious ways with no clear ownership. It’s one thing if Samsung’s support chat-bot is misleading but that at least is obviously linked to the company in question whereas, say, the fake Twitter…

The other issue with bots is whether a company's support is bot-only or human. Free choice and all, but without disclosure ( pre -purchase) a company shouldn't be able to "cost manage" their support function by using an algorithm fronted by chatbots.

Yeah, I'd also back laws banning a lot of the no-recourse situations companies cost-minimize you into but that'd also want to account for, say, having you talk to people who are under strict instructions not to help you or tell you why.

(Once Verizon tried to charge me an ETF despite being a couple of years out of contract. The phone support was horrible and I thought it might have just been an English fluency issue but then I called the executive office and the person who fixed my bill just casually volunteered that the people in the first-tier call centers cannot in any way reverse charges or escalate to people who can, and aren't allowed to say that. They understood the question but their jobs were literally on the line if they told you that they couldn't help.)

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

#148

Post by quotemstr » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

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…

You're absolutely right about normalizing lies and deception. You know what normalizes lying faster than anything else? Requiring that people lie about the evidence of their own eyes if they're to be accepted into polite company. We've built a society in which lying is compulsory in certain domains. Why on Earth would anyone expect the lying to stay within those domains once the taboo against dishonesty in general is broken?

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

#149

Post by awakeasleep » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

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.

It’s not ugly, either.

For generations people who wanted to do business in another jurisdiction had to follow the law of that place, even if it meant physically traveling there or opening a store.

Internet businesses would still have things much easier, as a change in software can be done by someone working from home or in Chennai or what have you- without any capital expenditure.

Dont make this out to be armageddon- it’s not.

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

#150

Post by pixl97 » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #142

kodz4 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some part of the population is always going to use deception and weakness of others. I don't think there is a "general fix". You just have to constantly show them where the boundaries are and the cost of crossing them. Taking advantage of the expectation, that a general fix is possible, is what gets Charlatans and Panderers into power. That said, despite the fact that it has been easier to take advantage of the weakn…

> that same pace causes natural born predators to bump into each other more, clashing more frequently, expending more resources/energy in empire defense. And that's a problem in this case, because it's not like any of the predators in ad industry actually dies . They just deliver less money for the parties that employed/contracted them. Advertising has a different dynamic than regular predation, because in a saturate…

>And that's a problem in this case, because it's not like any of the predators in ad industry actually dies.

Hmm, I'm not saying that you unintentionally found a solution here.