Discussion
Took a while to find the phrase that @pluralistic used recently that I really liked that summed up this situation.
Reverse-centaur
This article screams that Burger King would really just prefer to get rid of the squishy human part of their system. The next best thing... make that squishy human subservient to some lines of code that effectively tells them to "smile more".
Burger King AI bot will check up on staffs' please and thank yous - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgk2zygg0k3o
Because nothing gives customers a better warm fuzzy felling in their belly than knowing the servers friendliness is ingenuous and they've been forced to do it.
@monkeyben @Cyberoutsider @pluralistic
Was at a Starbucks recently (yeah, I know) and after the barista had what seemed like an authentic, human interaction with a customer, the manager walked by her and said "nice connect!" like the whole thing was a sport and the employee just scored a point.
Had the sense that SBUX and pick up artists were using the same vile playbook. 🤢
You must admire the PR-person who came up with this statement:
'The AI system, called BK Assistant, compiles "FRIENDLINESS SCORES" at the fast-food chain's locations based on employees' conversations ..... BUT the technology is not designed to "evaluate individual employees".'
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So we score you, but we do not evaluate you based on that score.
How does that work?
@paulschoe @Cyberoutsider @pluralistic "BUT the technology is not designed to "evaluate individual employees".'"
Narrator: Regardless, it would immediately be used to evaluate individual employees.
@paulschoe @Cyberoutsider @pluralistic Probably much the same way in which “de-identified” data is supposed to protect privacy…which is to say not at all.
@paulschoe @Cyberoutsider @pluralistic
Read carefully. Just because they say the technology wasn't designed to evaluate employees that doesn't mean they won't use it this way.
@klegdixal @paulschoe @Cyberoutsider @pluralistic Just like Social Security Numbers being just for Social Security benefits. Not for anything else! ::ten seconds layeteur::
