Michael Hobbes: I knew it! — Subium • Bluesky web client

I knew it!

lol whaddaya know

it's like Arthur C Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from labor arbitrage

it's mechanical turks all the way down

thinking about the diamond age

actually, none of this should be surprising from amazon

what I'm looking forward to is a car with a "self-driving" mode that's actually being driven by some guy at a desk.

"Listen, Bob, we put you on a PIP for this. You can't just steer people into bridge abutments every time the Chargers lose."

"I told you, I am only doing it with customers in Denver, Kansas City, and Vegas! What's the problem?"

They actually tried that... techcrunch.com/2024/03/12/r...

Remote driving startup Phantom Auto is shutting down | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com Phantom Auto, the remote driving startup, is shutting down after failing to raise more capital, TechCrunch has learned.

All the flaws of a human driving with slightly less spatial awareness. I can't see how this could have failed.

And no instinct for self-preservation! Having a bad day? No problem, go ahead, crash that car into a wall, it's therapeutic!

And 100% less skin in the game

Not even a direct-drive wheel rig, smh

Oh heck yeah, getting paid for all my experience with Mario Kart and Cruisin' USA

That was Cruise’s secret, live remote drivers monitoring and taking over when necessary.

Yep! And a lot more often than their advertising suggested. Presumably a lot of the others are similar. www.sfgate.com/tech/article...

Cruise's SF cars aren't as self-driving as they seem, NYT reportswww.sfgate.com Cruise's San Francisco cars have been getting human assistance every 2.5 to 5 miles, according to a report from the New York Times.

“The Prima guide says that if I press the accelerator right before the light turns green then I should get a lil’ power boost I think”

Hours with an Xbox controller in my hand > Hours spent studying in college

Still would be safer than some drivers I know.

the mini versimini version already exists

www.cnbc.com/2023/11/06/c...

all of our magic technology is just exploited workers: www.theverge.com/features/237...

Inside the AI Factorywww.theverge.com How many humans does it take to make tech seem human? Millions.

It's just a modern day Mechanical Turk con

guess what their name for it is www.mturk.com

Holy shit. It’s just so blatant. Please tell me this is fake.

It's real, and almost 20 years old.

Worked there a decade or so ago, can confirm, absolute 🙃

Fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuck

My first thought

The best part is the next paragraph refers to this as “an incredible technology that was ahead of it’s time”

Indeed. And even in this paragraph, there should be qualifying quotes some the word technology.

Oh for fuck's sake. I hate the "future". 😒

Ain’t it the stupidest thing ever? Every goddamned thing is a stupid grift by lazy assholes who got lucky on a prior grift, and now have influence over moronic executives who don’t know anything about anything except they somehow are revered for “business acumen” and get to shape civilization.

Fuckin A. Every thing that’s any good is being stripped and sold for parts to buy more Rich Boy Fun Coins.

you're trying to tell me that the company who invented Mechanical Turk, and had the audacity to *call* it Mechanical Turk, may have in fact been paying people behind the scenes to fake their "AI"? inconceivable

I just want the next AI startup to call their product Clever Hans, and then I will truly feel fulfilled

Incidentally, they call it MechTurk internally. MacTurk, my brain went Le Mec Turk, my brain associated later. I had issues but I kept silent.

sorry I just noticed that they're instead shifting to having a scanner on your cart so you can "checkout while you shop", a thing that has been in Stop n Shops since at least 2015 and that, I can tell you from experience, sucks and takes longer than being checked out

Every alternatives to getting checked out takes longer. I can’t even pack the items in a bag while my husband uses the self checkout machines because the whole thing locks down if you pick an item up from the counter. Idk why he insists on making us go thru the self checkout every time 😑

Also the fact that this large metal surface is perfectly purse height, but you cannot under any circonstance put your purse on it. Maddening.

Also it costs the store more and people hate doing unpaid work and they still need a cashier there because inevitably something goes wrong or someone wants alcohol etc. My cousins, who worked at Target, said they can check out faster at a till because they don't have to wait.

The Verge had a piece last year about how most AI is literally armies of low-cost labor www.theverge.com/features/237...

Inside the AI Factorywww.theverge.com How many humans does it take to make tech seem human? Millions.

The companies are very vocal about it at trade shows.

The labor providers, you mean?

The AI companies. Lots of visual AI companies with industrial use cases touting the offshore labor that ensures quality in real-time.

Things like part identification and qa/qc functions

Fascinating! TIL!

with alt text

Linking to an article that contradicts their claims. :Þ

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