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.
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
Do they already not do that? They just call it “the computer”.
I mean, it’ll mostly be accelerating a trend that was already there. Also, the initial scramble to use the legal grey area to cover as much shady shit as possible in a: Well shucks, how were we supposed to know the neural net would make illegal denials? After all, the guys who trained it don’t even know exactly why it does what it does kinda way
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.
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)
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Theoretically. Last time i saw an ‘american ecpress’ card was like 2013.
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Huh? I don’t think I’ve ever used a rental car service that didn’t require a credit card. Exactly so they can charge for this sort of thing.
Virtually any place that accepts a credit card will accept debit cards, too. Actually, most debit cards can be processed as credit cards. The comment you responded to simply highlighted that this trick is much easier to pull with credit card than a debit card, as the creditor hasn’t yet been repaid for the credit issued.
I don’t understand how this works out badly for the person using a debit card. You pay for the vehicle and if they try to make you pay more you ask for proof and if you don’t get it you walk away.
Or do they require a collateral fee when renting?
The other thing not being mentioned is that credit cards and debit cards have different legally required protections.
It’s about who’s lawyers you can rally to your defense in a dispute.
With a credit card you’re spending the bank’s money. If you can convince the bank you’re in the right, it’s you and the bank’s lawyers recovering the bank’s money.
As a debit card user, the banks will support your legal rights, because it’s good business for your clients to prosper. While the bank’s lawyers won’t go to bat for you, many will be willing to give you quasi-legal and quasi-financial tidbits or point you in the right direction.
As the bank’s client’s employee, you’re basically on your own. Good luck.
Or do they require a collateral fee when renting?
Yes
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
Except they are using computer vision, not an LLM
what do you think is driving the image recognition take that comes from the computer vision hardware?
it’s an LLM.
Sounds like that shit with dodgy smoking detection in a hotel from last week…
Those do exactly what they’re supposed to do. They’re even explicitly advertised as providing new revenue streams.
Yup intentionally using dogy tools to extract more money from people under false pretenses, at this point I’m boycotting any company that claims to use AI, fuck em all
Good luck trying to boycott a car rental company, as far as I can tell they are all actually the same company with 5 different “brands”. You rent from one but when you show up they send you to another one who has the car. It’s crazy.
Use Turo. You can rent basic or fun/interesting cars directly from the owners.
Hertz is a ripoff and a hassle and little else
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.
* tbf fucking around with that term probably isn’t a new thing either, and science itself is divided on how to define it.
The current situation is a bubble based on an over hyped extension of the cloud compute boom. Nearly a trillion dollars of capital expenditure over the past 5 years from major tech companies chasing down this white whale and filling up new data centers with Nvidia GPUs. With revenue caping out at maybe 45 billion annually across all of them for “AI” products and services, and that’s before even talking about ongoing operation costs such as power for the data centers, wages for people working on them, or the wages of people working to develop services to run on them.
None of this is making any fucking profit, and every attempt to find new revenue ether increases their costs even more or falls flat on its face the moment it is actually shipped. No one wants to call it out at higher levels because NVIDIA is holding up the whole fucking stock market right now, and them crashing out because everyone stoped buying new GPUs will hurt everyone else’s growth narrative.
We called the basic movement of the grabbers in Defender AI to distinguish it from the fixed movement of Space Invaders. We still call that AI in modern videogames.
It’s also the other way around. What was called AI in the past is now called bots. Simple algorithms that approximate the appearance of intelligence like even the earliest chess engines, for instance, were also called AI.
And all those uses are correct, because AI is a broad field. We should just use the more specific terms these days though: machine learning, LLM, Bayesian networks, etc.
Agreed. But most people have neither the time nor capacity to track all of these specifics, so popular discussions of AI-related technologies inevitably break down into a mud pit of people talking past each other about various different topics.
Which, if you think about it, is true of most public discussions about any complex topic. It almost invariably revolves into a miscommunication or a discussion about semantics.
People have the capacity to track genres and whatnot, what’s so different about this?
I think people could understand if explained probably, but unfortunately journalists rarely dive deeply enough to do that. It really doesn’t need to get too involved:
- machine learning - tell an algorithm what it’s allowed to change and what a “good” output is and it’ll handle the rest to find the best solution
- Bayesian networks - probability of an event given a previous event; this is the underpinnings of LLMs
- LLM - similar to Bayesian networks, but with a lot more data
And so on. If people can associate a technology with common applications, it’ll work a lot more like genres and people will start to intuit limitations of various technologies.
What’s different is that most people will see it as “tech stuff” and mentally file it in a drawer with spare extension cords and adapters. They don’t care to deeply study or catalog things. Nerds care about that, and most people here, including me, are nerds, but most people are not nerds and consider learning to be a form of torture.
People writ-large don’t care about proper genre labels either, they just kinda pick a vibe and guess off of it. Look at all the -core suffixed aesthetic names that cropped up in the last decade.
True! I was refering to some stricltly scientific definitions but of course there’s always been popular/broader ones.
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.
It’s pretty clear your understanding of the history of computer science comes from Star Wars.
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.
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.
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 incorrect 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, with the car still there too, and means you have to muster the time and effort to call customer services - which they are hoping you won’t bother doing. Even if you do call, CS hold all the cards at that point and can easily swerve you over the phone.
It’s all part of the business strategy.
That’s why you chargeback. Don’t waste time arguing with the machine, cut it off at the cashflow
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.
I was pretty clear about what I was referring to. The internet is just full of pedants lurking and waiting for their chance to UM ACKSHUALLY their way into a conversation.
The technology isn’t there to accurately assess damage. It’s there to give Hertz an excuse to charge you extra money. It’s working exactly as the ghouls in the C-suite like.
Just because THE TECHNOLOGY IS NOT PERFECT does not mean it is NOT DOING WHAT IT’S intended to do. Sorry I’m having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE.
There’s literally nothing wrong with the technology.
Pick a lane troll
Sounds like they want to lose those customers.
That’s why the matching strategy is mergers to combine all the competitors into one company.
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 most amazing service possible for their customers or are they trying to find new ways 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?
Sometimes there’s no competition. Many times there is. And still customers will ignore them.
Look where we all are right now. Was it hard leaving Reddit? Did it cost you anything? And yet millions of people return there every day. Reddit fucked them, they protested for 2 days, and then almost everyone went back to business as usual.
I use an app called GoMore in some places in Europe that allows you to rent cars from other peers. The rental process is cheaper and faster–everything is done through the app–and you avoid these shady corpo practices.
Turo is probably the closest equivalent in the US
In the US, Turo is basically that.
good, tbh
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.
very often, the storebrand is usually a namebrand product with a different wrapper.
Sometimes it’s made with lower quality ingredients at the same factory, sometimes it’s equivalent.
Yea, it’s usually the nicer packaged, higher priced products that make dumb consumers feel like they’re buying something better.
But sometimes the nicer packaged product is better, it depends on the product.
Sometimes is doing a lot of work here though
Sure, I’m just not sure if it’s more or less often than when it’s equivalent. It’s frequent enough that you should be careful if quality is what you’re after.
Then you can buy nestle products and feel good about it because it’s got the Kroger label instead of nestle, because store brands are generally name brand products in the stores wrapping.
Careful! Some of us are capable of flipping the package over and reading.
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.
They’re all rather shitty tbh, with some regional variation
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?
Enterprise has been good.
I recently used Avis, they were totally cromulent.
Plus they are worshipped as a god in some sectors of the universe.
Katniss everdeen
Avis is terrible.
I used Avis in a different state for a short car rental and they sent me a hefty bill for some kind of damage below the vehicle a couple months after returning it.
I refused to pay and will refuse to use them ever again. Your mileage may vary.
I rent through Costco and try to pick Alamo when possible. Avis is decent but they often share a line with Budget which can take forever.
I’m not a loyalty member of any brand for reference.
I’ve had a lot of good recent experiences with Enterprise (in the US). There’s some interesting services like Turo, but I can’t bring myself to try it yet. Weirdly too personal being other people’s cars.
Enterprise and Alamo is owned by the same family which means they aren’t beholden to public shareholders. Usually this means the company is ran better and not as haphazardly as public ones tend to be.
I imagine Turo is now very similar to AirBnB in most areas, as in these are dedicated rentals, just owned by individuals instead of chains.
SIXT and TURO. Maybe price out renting the big truck from Lowe’s/home depot. Or a haul. Both might be cheaper than hertz/enterprise depending on your area.
Sixt is specifically called out as AI lying about damages in Germany.
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
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.
You should also ask for a copy of the pictures or videos it takes while scanning so you can reference when returning.
And they will totally provide those to you, no problem.
No. Shit.
