4w ago

Fintech founder charged with fraud after 'AI' shopping app found to be powered by humans in the Philippines | TechCrunch

18 comments

So why not Amazon for their shopping system in stores?
- I think they're pretty different cases.
  Amazon's one was essentially a side project for them, likely fully funded in-house using their R&D (research and development) budget.
  In Nate's case, it was their entire product. They received funding from investors purely for the AI functionality that didn't actually exist or work. They specifically claimed that it did work, which is how they got the money. They spent all the investor money and had essentially nothing to show for it.
  
  Yeah, investing in a company is investing in the whole company and all of its projects. Lies about your company are only fraud when the lies rise to the level of making a material difference to how a typical investor would value that company. If the lies are about a very minor percentage of revenue or profit, then it's not gonna rise to the level of securities fraud.
- A perfectly legitimate question, especially since this misleading approach is precisely why Amazon's Mechanical Turk is named like that.
  The Mechanical Turk, also known as the Automaton Chess Player, was a fraudulent chess-playing machine built by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770. It appeared to play chess autonomously but was actually operated by a skilled human chess player hidden inside. (Source)
  I don't know the answer, but I assume that it probably has something to do with money and power...
  
  I don't think it's exactly the same. If I used MT to label data for AI/ML, that would be one thing. If I used MT to complete tasks and calling their effort AI, that would be fraud.
- By stores do you mean Amazon Fresh? Definitely.
  I thought it was interesting it wasn't mentioned in the comparison to similar historical false claims.

AGI is actually an acronym for "a guy instead"
- I was today years old when I learned this.

In all honesty, if I was told my data would be handled by some guy in the Philippines rather than a black box algorithm, I'd consider that a plus.
"Human-handled" needs to be some a badge of honor.
- "organic AI"
  
  That's just I.