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Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

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Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#451

Post by projektfu »

alistairSH wrote: post #349
mihaaly wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually when an algorithm results in something false, then you do not have to challange it, it is just simply wrong. Insisting and charging somoking based on implicit and obscure ways of a "revenue stream generating" detector is a pure scam or fraud. Those involved in this criminal endeavour should be procecuted. I will avoid Hyatt just in case and discourage my social circles too, warning them! No-one needs this sl…

Does Hyatt corporate have any say in this? Pretty sure many hotels are licensing the name, independent managed, etc. Ie you’re just as likely to find these at an other brand hotels too.

Yes, I'm sure they do. They will not be pleased if visits to corporate hotels drop because of their franchises.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#452

Post by abdullahkhalids »

lblume wrote: post #328
Eisenstein wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets are efficient at extracting value from things, but what that value is needs to be determined before we blindly create a market for it. In the traffic light case you mention the value is money, when it should be safety. Traffic lights are installed to ensure traffic flow and safety, so getting a monetary return on a safety device should be non-sensical, but here we are. We should not be involving private marke…

How do you actually create aligned incentives though? Goodhard's law, cobra effects and generalized coordination problems really do seem pervasive.

The core problem is that there are no single people who cannot be held legally responsible for the fraud. The responsibility is, by design, diffused across many actors.

This problem has already been solved in engineering domains, like electrical or civil. There is a single engineer who has to sign off on the design of an electric product or a bridge. If the bridge collapses and the problem was with the design, the engineer loses their license or may go to jail. Similarly, in EU, every company that deals with customer data needs a Data Protection Officer. Customer data leaks, the person is responsible.

This model has to be expanded to every other domain. Once people fear going to jail, a lot of fraud will go away.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#453

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

nine_zeros wrote: post #265
lxgr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me in court – by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled as part of check-in.

>Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me in court – by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled as part of check-in. Why can't there be a human membership union that sets these automatic binding arbitration agreements on service providers on behalf of members? Is there any law…

When someone cheats and swindles you, you don't win by cheating and swindling them more. Even if you succeed, now the world is just that more swindle-y than it was the day before, and swindling has become a way of life.

The correct and only solution is for Congress to define what constitutes someone agreeing to a contract, and penalizing anyone who even raises the notion in a court of law that you have agreed to something without having performed that statutory gesture.

First, agreements can't be made unless both parties are present. If they don't bother to send a representative to you with a piece of paper, not an agreement. If they don't get your signature on the paper (or some legislatively defined equivalent), not an agreement. If they've attempted to hide or cheat or confuse, such that it's not apparent, nothing has been agreed.

This would get rid of much of the bullshit we have today with EULAs, binding arbitration horseshit, and all the other chicanery. Have Congress make it a law.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#454

Post by grafmax »

scoofy wrote: post #392
pksebben wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is this country ruled by the people? You're periodically given a non-choice between two options that have equal disdain for your actual concerns, who then go on to play games to see who can get the most bajiliionare backing for reelection, and if you don't like what they're doing you're perfectly free to vote for the OTHER jerk who also doesn't give a shit about you. This is oligarchy. The 'democratic' pr…

Oh, god, this tired nonsense. Yes, obviously, it's ruled by the people. We have parties, we vote, anyone can run for office. Anyone can vote third party, and they occasionally even win. That your neighbors don't share your views does not make it undemocratic. It's not perfect, but it's democratic. It's like people can no longer imagine living under a totalitarian state... where you don't even get a vote, and if you d…

I see. Elon Musk with the wave of his hand can conjure a new political party. Billionaire lobbyists hold politicians in tow. Or shape public opinion with the mass media companies they own. Supposedly my voice really is the same as theirs. (If so I wonder what they are spending so much money on.)

It seems this small wealthy faction can send people to concentration camps, collaborate on genocide, and undo the constitution. (Maybe you and I have different definitions of democracy.)

Or maybe because our government is not as bad North Korea’s I’m supposed to be fine with this state of affairs. (Thanks for the reassurance.)

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#455

Post by mvdtnz »

lxgr wrote: post #132

There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting this kind of thing. Even just removing the charge without discussion isn't enough, as some people will be traveling on a corporate card they don't necessarily monitor closely, will confuse the charge for something else etc. Otherwise, I'd love to be able to preemptively and without any prior communication charge (way in excess of the room rate, of course!…

In most countries there would be no wondering if there are ways to penalize the companies. This is flagrantly against the law in most of he civilized world and it wouldn't last 5 seconds.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#456

Post by vkou »

SoftTalker wrote: post #300
vkou wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hotels don't ever catch people in the act, they just let housekeeping report that the room smells like smoke and they take the fine out of your deposit. That's why they demand a deposit (or a card), by the way.

Leave a $20 for the housekeeper and you won't get reported.

They'll happily take the $20 and then report you, because it's their job on the line when the next guest complains that the room smells like shit.

There's no way to conceal cigarette smoke indoors. It's painfully obvious that a room's been smoked in.

Vapes are way lower-key, and as a non-smoker/vaper/etc, unlike cigarettes, someone vaping in a space really doesn't bother me.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#457

Post by sbarre »

tbrownaw wrote: post #332
egypturnash wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBnB partiers are a real problem, I live in a tourist destination and regularly hear horror stories about a residential neighborhood suddenly having crowds descend on a house that's become a party rental. There's nobody to notice it getting out of hand and tell them to chill before the neighbors call the cops because the owner is a holding company on the other side of the country. Of course Airbnbs are also a real…

> Of course Airbnbs are also a real problem in general with the way they increase the scarcity of housing, What's the actual mechanism for airbnbs to prevent housing construction?

I'll assume good faith here:

AirBnB rentals typically make more money for apartment and condo owners than long-term rentals, at least in big cities (that attract tourists) where there's often already scarce housing and not a lot of new affordable construction.

So as housing units get taken off the long-term market rental (i.e. actually being used for housing) to be turned into short-term rental for AirBnB, it reduces the available stock for renters.

And in many large cities small condos and purpose-built rentals are mostly what get built, because that's what investors are asking for - and builders build what they expect to sell and what they can profit on.

But then the investors who buy these "homes" don't actually put them up for rent, they turn them into short-term rentals for tourists and visitors, and those dwellings are not available for the people who actually need to live in the city.

This dual pressure on scarcity then drives up the rent on available properties because the demand goes up since there's less and less long-term rentals available for residents.

So they don't necessarily "prevent housing construction" (what housing gets built is a topic a bit too complex to get into here) but they absolutely do reduce available housing in large cities and in-demand areas, in the ways outlined above.

This is why many large metropolitan areas have either banned AirBnB or heavily regulated them (with mixed success, and rarely the honest participation of AirBnB themselves).

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#458

Post by bobsmooth »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #284
EliRivers wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Taken at face value, you couldn't even use a pocket calculator to back up a management decision." That makes no sense. I am the manager. I make the decision. The calculator gives me some numbers but I am still the manager, still the decision maker, and I can use any tools appropriate to inform my decisions. Even a calculator. Taken at face value, that's what it says. That the calculator doesn't make the management d…

That's exactly what I'm saying. So what earthly point is there in saying, "A computer can't make management decisions, because it can't take responsibility?" It's a content-free sentence. There is nothing special about a computer in that regard. It's a tool... a tool wielded by a human somewhere. Anyone who tries to blame "the computer" should not be allowed to do so, and it's weird that it ever occurred to anyone to…

In UK law, computers are assumed to be correct. It's on the defense to prove that the computer was wrong.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#459

Post by dreamcompiler »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #341
const_cast wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly it tracks that almost no one was caught before. How? How does this track? Cigarette smoking is very conspicuous. I know, I used to smoke. It's not easy to hide! If you smoke inside, it will smell like smoke . Fabric and even plaster in walls will hold onto smoke for a long time. Not to mention the smoke smell goes under doors, too, so someone outside the room could smell it. If someone smokes in a room and…

They might be trying to indirectly generate revenue from legal marijuana. Places like Vegas have a huge amount of recreational sales to tourists. They're clearly smoking the product somewhere, and it's not on the casino floor. One might bet they are engaging in some amount of activity with the potential to generate revenue for the hotel.

This. I've noticed a lot more smoke smell in hotel rooms in the last five years but it's always cannabis -- not tobacco -- in states that have legalized it for purchase but still disallow its use in public spaces.

Re: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

#460

Post by dreamcompiler »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #141
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s tricky because the chains (like “Hyatt”) don’t actually own any hotels. They are generally owned by local ownership groups and it can be hard to figure out the real owner. That’s also why one Hyatt could be 5/5 and another 1/5. The chains don’t do a great job of quality control.

That's a cop out. What's the point of a brand if quality control is all over the place? Most McDonald's are franchises, and they famously give very similar experiences wherever you are. Not identical, obviously, but a Big Mac is a Big Mac. This is absolutely on Hyatt corporate. They should have policies regulating these types of detection systems.

McDonalds is a real estate company, not a hamburger company. Corporate often owns the land the restaurant sits on and they charge the franchisee rent. I presume they could raise the rent or kick the franchisee out if they fail to live up to the required standards. I don't know that other franchise operations have the degree of corporate control that McDonalds has.

https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...

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