Like do you really need an AI to do this? It’s been going on for years where I live. It’s not hard for all the local gas stations to collude to raise prices. It’s easier than ever when you have the likes of gasbuddy crowd-sourcing all the price-checking.
Where I live, it is a law that a gas station has to be within 10 cents of all the other gas stations in the area. So prices move up or down in lockstep with the surrounding prices. They get like 2 days to comply.
Is it useful? It does even prices out. And most gas stations do not make much profit off of the fuels they sell. Only a nickel a gallon at most around here. The gas just gets you to stop and walk into their convenience store. It’s the soda pop, pizza, sandwiches, chips and other crap they sell that is the real profit makers.
i like to point out that companies are using ai to be a boogeyman to distract you. take every article tou read and remove ai from the text or replace it with automation/algorithm.
even the jobs. 5 years ago it was “company lays off 10000 employees” response was “fuck management” – today they are doing the same thing but add “because ai” and everyone now says “fuck ai”.
I think it is very much both. I think that many people being clubbed and beaten by this AI stick know that someone’s swinging it.
A tool is only as good or bad as the one using it. Ai is no different.
If AI wasn’t being swung around by a bunch of dipshits and being overly inflated and left to grow at a reasonable pace instead of trying to hyper scale it faster then it reasonably should.
I doubt literally anyone would have a real issue with ai.
You don’t need massive data centers, you don’t need to steal the world’s knowledge, you don’t need to replace every human possiable with it.
But the ones wielding and pushing AI are doing that. And people blame the unthinking tool. Not the idiots using it.
And this said as someone who fucking hates AI as it currently is
Sure, but if practically all the visible applications of a tool are negative, the implement of harm and the harm itself are commingled.
I agree that machine learning tools have useful applications, but LLM tools only seem useful at solving problems we’ve already solved or could solve more responsibly with 1/100 the energy consumption, and those are the only ones anyone seems to have ever seen or heard of, and also the ones responsible for the drive to build these data centers that consume all our life-giving resources.
The LLM idea is not responsible for those decisions, but it does make them possible while doing nothing meaningful for anybody. It is not surprising to see people rail against something like that. It offers only downsides for them, their well-being, and their society.
It’s like Scooby doo except the mask is AI and underneath it’s still a rich guy
Yeah, most of the analysis I have seen has shown job losses due to AI have amounted to less than 1% of job losses in the US. Most of the losses are because of… just look at the White House. Easier to blame AI than actually admit politics is causing some serious issues.
I knew someone who worked for a gas station in a medium size college town. Part of her job was to jump in her car once a night and write down the prices that other local gas stations were charging, so the prices at her station could be adjusted. It didn’t require AI, only a Honda Accord.
just had to drive up to the top of the big hill with a pair of binoculars
Well la-de-dah someone got to live in a city with a hill. 😛
i mean it fell over and burned down a few times but we got her up eventually
Or a phone book. But still charge for the gas.
I asked why she couldn’t just call, apparently there is a law or maybe agreement not to give out fuel prices on the phone.
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Maybe using AI could be considered collusion?
That’s illegal as well.
Sure, but now you can blame the AI. Sorry, not our fault.
how does the logic work so it’s not their fault? if they are price fixing they are price fixing, the mechanism doesn’t matter.
Yep, if you tell an AI to do something, you are at least partially to blame for whatever it does. They shouldn’t be able to avoid responsibility that easily.
That’s kind if what Germany told Google. "If you have AI write your search summaries, you are responsible for checking its work and liable for its mistakes.
Yeah you’re probably on the money there. AI gives you some sort of plausible deniability?
It didn’t work for the RealPage rent price-fixing lawsuit.
It kind of did. They got a slap on the wrist and will still do it. It’s the 4th or 5th time they got busted for doing it.
Tell that to OPEC.
It certainly is. They get caught once in a while. The first time it happened was when I added the term “oligopoly” to my vocabulary.
Is it illegal if they don’t collude?
The but that makes using AI illegal is if they all use a common platform/service.
It’s legal if they don’t do any communication between the companies. Then nobody can prove that there is collusion. Using AI, that all use the same way to raise the prices and vibe the prices higher as response to the other AI raising prices is even better. Then it’s not even any human intent.
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Landlords used a common platform to price fix without communication between the companies and that was ruled illegal, it’s not quite the same but because of the way public LLMs don’t isolate inputs from users, you could argue that if any 2 users input their prices into the same platform they are engaging in collision as the information isn’t public.
Really we should just ban all algorithmic price setting.
Chevron: “Ha! You won’t catch us using AI, our prices have always been ridiculous!”
why ? is it illegal ? what standings could they possibly have ?
Doesn’t matter. Something can be not illegal and this is the way to test that.
Price fixing is a form of collusion, and it’s a crime - even if the sellers can claim they didn’t all sit down in a room together.
Phoenix apartments had an inflated housing market that was caused by price fixing. The property management used software to set rental prices, and the terms of service required them to use the prices suggested. None of the managers individually spoke to each other, but the software algorithmically inflated rent based on what other properties could get away with charging.
Just because they speak to someone through a computer program doesn’t mean it’s any different. Free market ideology requires us to pretend price fixing cartels don’t exist but in reality they’re everywhere
I just got my EV. I never have to deal with these scammers again.
Congrats! However, it’s worth pointing out that gas prices affect the cost of pretty much everything in the end; transportation/logistics, electricity, etc.
I mean fast chargers already do this by default, especially Tesla Chargers with ‘surge’ pricing. Can’t wait until they figure out exactly how much you are ‘worth’ and can just set the exact pricing based on what you ‘can pay’.
