cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48123523
Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”
If you know the history of advertising, “hacking our brains” is actually kind of amusing. Ad companies have been employing psychologists ever since the 1950s to figure out how to induce feelings - insecurity, envy, warmth, guilt… you name it, that translate to desire for a product. Classic example is implying that products will increase your sex appeal - not by literally telling you that, but by showing you their little scenarios where using Product X suddenly makes someone hot. Ooooooh, says the young blond in the halter top, you had your taxes done by H&R Bloch? Let me loosen these panties!
Using data about a person to gauge what kind of a deal they might be willing to make is a centuries=old negotiating technique known as “negotiating”. Sales people and other business people are always looking for better ways to do it, and now they’ve found AI to help them. Nobody’s hacking anybody’s brain, they’re just putting expert salesmanship in a box.
That is insane sophistry to justify criminal exploitation through dishonest scales in a market. If you cannot sell an honest transparent product you are a criminal. I do not bargain with sales twats in any space. Those are for emotional nonsense when people need to feel better about themselves.
Exploiting me though the sale of any part of me, including my digital presence at any point in time, is digital slavery of the 21st century. This system is an attempt to manipulate and exploit me. Such criminal behavior is turgid dystopianism. I wish all involved a long and painful bankruptcy.