Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#91

Post by polskibus » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #77

fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

People have historically complained a lot about firings not being based on an objective formula. Now the complaint is an objective formula is being used. > WW2 prisoner camps For starters, those camps would shoot anyone who tried to leave. Not the same thing at all.

I'd argue that if a process does not have room for you to explain yourself, and ensure that ALL data is taken into consideration by the other side then such process is authoritarian and not objective. An algorithm only looks at data it was programmed to look at, which is usually too narrow to be able to be without faults in the real world.

There are good reasons why judicial systems have higher instances in them to which you can appeal to if you don't agree with lower instance.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#92

Post by nabla9 » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

cyrksoft wrote: post #30

Tistron wrote: post #4

Reading articles like this makes me appreciate living in the EU. It's not always great, but clearly it could be worse. Article 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights states "Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected." I feel like that would be broken were we to allow this behaviour towards workers.

Particularly countries like Poland and Hungary, they are very respectful of Article 1. Or Germany making so much business with China and Russia. Don't kid yourself thinking that the EU is a special place that is somewhat exempt of any of this.

Poland and Hungary are in violation of many articles of EU.

The grievance is that the US lacks many of those articles.

Principles of EU > Principles of US >>>> Principles of China.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#93

Post by howaboutnope » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

yanderekko wrote: post #71

fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

>Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. So is the implication here that humans are less faulty, or that there's something intrinsically wrong about an AI making this decision rather than a human? If the former, then this is an issue that the technology will probably eventually solve. If the latter, well... that doesn't seem very justifiable, to say the le…

> So is the implication here that humans are less faulty

AI is just humans hiding behind a machine. And everything else being the same, those who have to hide their reasons or themselves are always intrinsically weaker and worth less than those who don't. That needs no explanation for people who own their shit, and no explanation will suffice for those who do.

> that will likely be unfortunate for consumers.

Consumers aren't just consumers. They have jobs, they have friends and family who have jobs.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#94

Post by jorvi » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #21

nickik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its amazing how people endlessly talk about Germany but ignore all the other cases where Union are far less positive. How about we talk about how Venezuela Union bosses. How about the US car workers union being an endless pit of corruption. Switzerland is next to Germany, and has almost no union and there is not so much difference in overall standard of living and how workers are treated. The idea that Unions are thi…

In Switzerland many professions have a GAV (initiated by unions) with strong worker protection.

AFAIK, Denmark doesn't even have a minimum wage, it's just that pretty much every sector and niche of the economy has unions so it is de facto enforced via union sector negotiations. Unions are great, and people who are against them fall in one of three categories:

- business owner

- absolute free market fetishists

- one bad experience cherry pickers

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#95

Post by x4e » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #10

dgb23 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overarching theme goes wider. For one it is about workers having some say in their lives outside of voting with their feet. Collective bargaining is one proven way to achieve that. The other is about the dehumanization of work environments with the help of "AI" AKA software. Similarly there are companies that force you to install spyware on your working device.

> force you to install spyware on your working device. If it’s their device, what’s wrong with that? Use your own device when you want privacy.

Which network do you connect it to? Do you connect it to your home network which all your other devices are connected to and through which all your internet traffic is sent?

Do you use it in your house? Does it then record everything it can see and hear within your house?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#96

Post by yossarian1408 » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

shmageggy wrote: post #25

MattGaiser wrote: post #7

Isn't Amazon's fear of running out of people a sign of the market correcting this?

They're in no danger of running out of people to employ. Social safety nets are too weak and economic conditions for the poor are too precarious that there are plenty of people willing to endure abusive conditions for a paycheck. The high turnover rate only ensures that they end up employing the most desperate and vulnerable.

It helps that a minimum wage and absurd regulation conspire to eliminate a good size of firms that would otherwise be competing in a fair labour market. And let's not get started on the taxes that small and medium sized businesses have to pay, and that Amazon is exempt from.

Raising social safety nets would only lead to inflation, and so now you need to put a price ceiling on essential goods&services, which leads to a shortage, and now you're in a bigger mess than when you started. Inflation and shortages in the long term does not lead to growth, it leads too stagflation.

In this instance, where there is a failure in the labour market, you don't actually have to 'fix' it, you just have to give a fair labour market a chance.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#97

Post by apexalpha » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #77

fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

People have historically complained a lot about firings not being based on an objective formula. Now the complaint is an objective formula is being used. > WW2 prisoner camps For starters, those camps would shoot anyone who tried to leave. Not the same thing at all.

I think the point is that to the AI, an employee is just a number. Interchangeable at any moment, with no consideration for the human person and how it affects them.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#98

Post by navaati » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #58

dave_sullivan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly scales, it's not all uniform. But the EU is a big place and people are free to pick which country they live in. It's disingenuous to suggest it's all the same thing. The larger point of EU workers having more rights is, on average, very true. The US (and China and Russia) treats their workers very poorly by comparison.

> But the EU is a big place and people are free to pick which country they live in. There are limits though. You have a 3 months period where you can stay in another UE country then the national authorities can ask for your leaving. There are statuses that allows you to stay longer (work, studies, retirement, etc.) but those statuses have requirements and obligations. You can't take your tent, set it up somewhere in…

What the hell ! I moved from France to Ireland and there was no question asked at any point, I just booked a ferry and rented a flat, no paperwork at all and I could live there as long as I wanted to.

I'm not so much saying you're wrong as afraid you're right, do you have sources ?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#99

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #77

fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

People have historically complained a lot about firings not being based on an objective formula. Now the complaint is an objective formula is being used. > WW2 prisoner camps For starters, those camps would shoot anyone who tried to leave. Not the same thing at all.

People have historically complained a lot about firings not being based on an objective formula. Now the complaint is an objective formula is being used.

If these same people got what they wanted, then realised it didn’t turn out the way they envisioned, and had worse outcomes, then used the new information to change their minds, then I don’t see what the problem is.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#100

Post by apexalpha » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #58

dave_sullivan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly scales, it's not all uniform. But the EU is a big place and people are free to pick which country they live in. It's disingenuous to suggest it's all the same thing. The larger point of EU workers having more rights is, on average, very true. The US (and China and Russia) treats their workers very poorly by comparison.

> But the EU is a big place and people are free to pick which country they live in. There are limits though. You have a 3 months period where you can stay in another UE country then the national authorities can ask for your leaving. There are statuses that allows you to stay longer (work, studies, retirement, etc.) but those statuses have requirements and obligations. You can't take your tent, set it up somewhere in…

As far as I'm aware any EU citizen can live/work/study in any other EU country for as long as they want. Even includes Norway and Switzerland.

Obviously you would have to pay taxes. Or I miss the point about fiscal authorities finding you.