I think it’s generally a brilliant solution but there are a couple of problems here:
- The scanner seems to flag fucking everything and charge for minor damage where a human would probably flag it as wear.
- No one is allowed to correct the scanner:
Perturbed by the apparent mistake, the user tried to speak to employees and managers at the Hertz counter, but none were able to help, and all “pointed fingers at the ‘AI scanner.’” They were told to contact customer support — but even that proved futile after representatives claimed they “can’t do anything.”
Sounds to me like they’re just trying to replace those employees. That’s why they won’t let them interfere.
Sounds like they want to lose those customers.
Companies have been fucking consumers since the beginning of time and consumers, time and time again, bend over and ask for more. Just look at all of the most successful companies in the world and ask yourself, are they constantly trying to deliver the amazing service possible for their customers or are they trying to fuck them at every available opportunity?
I feel like the go to strategy would be to offer incredible service at first, then once you are big enough to force out competitors and the like, then you start fucking the consumer
The word used for that strategy is usually “enshittification”. It happens a lot after digital tech is introduced in a new sector.
Not many people today remember when Google was actually useful. Once upon a time.
From “don’t be evil” to “be as evil as possible”
But they know their competitions are doing to adopt the same type of tech, so where are those customers going to go when they have no choice?
I’m not sure how you can make the points you make, and still call it a “generally brilliant solution”
The entire point of this system - like anything a giant company like Hertz does - is not to be fair to the customer. The point is to screw the customer over to make money.
Not allowing human employees to challenge the AI decision is very intentional, because it defers your complaint to a later time when you have to phone customer support.
This means you no longer have the persuasion power of being there in person at the time of the assessment, and means you have to muster the time and effort to call customer services - which they are hoping you won’t bother doing - who even if you do call can then easily swerve you over the phone.
This is all part of the game plan.
I’m not sure how you can make the points you make, and still call it a “generally brilliant solution”
Because the technology itself is not the problem, it’s the application. Not complicated.
The technology is literally the problem as it’s not working
There’s literally nothing wrong with the technology. The problem is the application.
The technology is NOT DOING WHAT ITS MEANT TO DO - it is IDENTIFYING DAMAGE WHERE THERE IS NONE - the TECHNOLOGY is NOT working as it should
Do you hold everything to such a standard?
Stop lights are meant to direct traffic. If someone runs a red light, is the technology not working as it should?
The technology here, using computer vision to automatically flag potential damage, needed to be implemented alongside human supervision - an employee should be able to walk by the car, see that the flagged damage doesn’t actually exist, and override the algorithm.
The technology itself isn’t bad, it’s how hertz is using it that is.
I believe the unfortunate miscommunication here is that when @[email protected] said the solution was brilliant, they were referring to the technology as the “solution”, and others are referring to the implementation as a whole as the “solution”
The stop light analogy would require the stop light be doing something wrong not the human element doing something wrong because.
There is no human element to this implantation, it is the technology itself malfunctioning. There was no damage but the system thinks there is damage.
It’s really funny here. There already exists software that does this stuff. It’s existed for quite a while. I personally know a software engineer that works at a company that creates this stuff. It’s sold to insurance companies. Hertz version must just totally suck.
It’s on brand. I pity the fool that doesn’t know hertz is a fucked up rental agency
Isn’t this the same company that called the police on legitimate customers after they messed up the paperwork?
And the company that charges “gas refueling fees” for a fully charged EV.
Holy shit. The contract that dude signed had a maximum fee of $35 for EV recharge, yet they charged him $277 and claimed the contract allowed that. Thankfully, the worst I’ve had from Hertz is they just told me to fuck off and didn’t give me my reserved vehicle.
I’ve had from Hertz is they just told me to fuck off and didn’t give me my reserved vehicle.
And here I thought they just didn’t like me… WTF kind of business is this lol
I’m not unconvinced that it isn’t just an elaborate money laundering company
They charged me for a broken windshield, which I paid and then wouldn’t provide me a receipt for my insurance company. Then to top it off, they turned me into a collections agency because they said I didn’t pay for the windshield. I will never rent from them again.
And I will take this as my cue to mention that Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty are all the same company and they will each of them take every opportunity possible to fuck you.
I will bring this up again like I did my last post concerning Hertz.
While I was in Albuquerque, NM getting off the Amtrak train, I reserved our rental car from their website and went to the nonexistent address with no phone number or anything. After half an hour we called another Hertz and they basically told us to piss off and call the location we booked the car. I have few brands that I boycott and now they will be Nestle products (and sub companies) and Hertz.
Nestle products (and sub companies)
That’s a tall order. And just to be clear, not saying we should just give up against those numbers. It’s not an all-or-nothing situation.
Just buy store brands and you’re 80% of the way there.
I wonder what a credit card dispute would result in here. Underutilized feature when businesses pull shady shit. Think I’ve had 6 or so disputes over the years, never failed.
Too many people these days don’t use or have access to credit cards for services like this. Many people I know only use bank debit cards, or worse, use the debit preloaded cash cards issued by their employers’ payroll service provider.
Credit cards motivate banks to help you, because if you won’t pay, and the business doesn’t pay, the bank has to take the hit.
Debit cards will work as well if your bank values it’s reputation - but not all banks do.
And I would not trust a preloaded card provider to assist. You are neither their business partner nor their customer and that puts your interests at the bottom of a very long list. You have to hope some law is on your side or that your issue is so trivial that resolving it is more cost effective then dealing with you.
Credit cards are also an instrument of christofascist pedophiles who want to ban all pornography and ‘pornography’ (they consider the existence of queer people to be porn)
I paid a $300 deposit to reserve a moving company in five days.
The associate on the phone told me to read the terms carefully online
I said sure and skimmed it. Then paid the emailed invoice. I shopped around and found a rate 40% cheaper.
So I called the next day. 20 hours later. Spoke to the same associate and she said no refund because it’s within 7 days of the appointment.
I wasn’t having it. Yes it’s in the terms. Don’t care. She knew the booking was not refundable and said read the terms instead of fucking telling me that on our phone call.
I called her right the fuck out. We spoke on the phone. I didn’t self service online. I told her I saw the terms and I don’t care. I called 20 hours after our previous call and she knew the deposit was not refundable. That’s shady as fuck.
I demanded a refund. She pointed to terms.
I said I was going to issue a charge back and blast them online in every platform I could find.She spoke to the owner and I got my refund.
I am 0% surprised that Hertz would be the first in the US to roll this out. Expecting a Steve Lehto YouTube video about it within the next three days …
He’s already done 3 that I know of
The term AI itself is a shifting of goalposts. What was AI 50 years ago is now AGI, so we can call this shit AI though it’s nothing of the sort. And everybody’s falling for the hype: governments, militaries, police forces, care providers, hospitals… not to speak of the insane amounts of energy & resources this wastes, and other highly problematic, erm, problems. What a fucking disaster.
If it wasn’t for those huge caveats I’d be all for it. Use it for what it can do (which isn’t all that much), research it. But don’t fall for the shit some tech bro envisions for us.
What was AI 50 years ago is now AGI,
You’re not wrong, but that’s also a bit misleading. “AI” is all-encompassing while terms like AGI and ASI are subsets. From the 1950s onward AI was expected to evolve quickly as computing evolved, that never happened. Instead, AI mostly topped out with decision trees, like those used for AI in videogames. ML pried the field back open, but not in the ways we expected.
AGI and ASI were coined in the early 2000s to set apart the goal of human-level intelligence from other kinds of AI like videogame AI. This is a natural result of the field advancing in unexpected, divergent directions. It’s not meant to move the goal post, but to clarify future goals against past progress.
It is entirely possible that we develop multiple approaches to AGI that necessitate new terminology to differentiate them. It’s the nature of all evolution, including technology and language.
I’d ask for the stupid AI scanning system to scan my car before I agree to renting it. Once they sign off on the ‘all clear’ notification from their AI scanner before rental, then I’d consider renting it … but after reading this headline, I’d probably just tell them, I’m spending a few hundred dollars more on renting a car from someone else.
Just spit balling here, but they probably tune the AI for different thresholds between return and rent out so that they can rake in the damage fees for things that “weren’t there” during the first AI scan.
Oh, so Hertz has gotten wise to… every online platform that exists: Outsourcing all responsibility for their user-hostile bullshit to some vague “system” that cannot be held accountable.
I’m so sorry but the advertised cost has doubled because… Computer says so! No, sir, there’s nothing I can do, sir, you see it’s the system.
And you can’t go anywhere else, because everyone else is doing it (or soon will be) too!
just wait till they start denying health insurance with it
I’m sorry ma’am I know you’re upset, but the AI said it’s not covered. The AI is numbers, and numbers don’t lie.
United Health is way ahead of you. 1000 use cases, they tout. it’s one of the things that lead to the luigi-ing.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealth-now-has-1-000-ai-use-cases-including-in-claims-f3387ca3
Oh, this is a thing. It’s called an accountability sink.
There is a really interesting book called the unaccountability machine by Rory Sutherland (if my memory is working). Worth a read
Thanks! I knew there was a term, but just couldn’t conjure it.
I get why they’d use something like this to save money and time but, is suspect that correct use would include a human check before charging people.
We need to start pushing for laws on this kind of thing. Automated checks are fine if you, as the company, trust they won’t have too many false negatives. If you aren’t checking for false positives, though, you should be heavily fined for each false report. $25,000 per false report sounds like a good place to start. Hopefully that would be large enough to not just be the cost of doing business.
Fair game. Give me a grease pen and let me mark everything I see. By the time I’m done, they’ll owe me money.
Never rent a car from Hertz, check.
Hertz has also called the cops on their customers for a variety of asinine reasons.
I steer clear of them and Enterprise (Enterprise has been working the whole shaft for ICE).
“AI is a disaster.” Fixed it for you.
You mean an LLM that doesn’t have the ability to understand context fails to make decisions that require context to do properly? Shocking /s
Okay so…in the rare event I need to rent a car, any suggestions on who to use that isn’t Hertz and sister companies?
I recently used Avis, they were totally cromulent.
Plus they are worshipped as a god in some sectors of the universe.
