AI Mistakes Bus-Side Ad for Famous CEO, Charges Her With Jaywalking

Proportional fines help, but they aren’t perfectly fair.

I have heard of other countries that have similar systems.

The solution to fines is to simply get rid of fines and instead use a more aggressive "point" system. I'm not wealthy by any means but the threat of a $200 ticket has zero impact on my driving habits whereas the threat of having my license suspended if I get 2 tickets in a 12 month span (a hypothetical example of possible punishment btw) would definitely change how I drive.

I can't really think of any crime that carries a fine rather than revocation of certain rights where this wouldn't work. The only issue is that of enforcement, you have to make the threat of getting caught a second or third time real enough that the punishment becomes psychologically meaningful.

Those fines hurt.

Jaywalking was just a "growth hack" that needs to be reverted. Society needed fast transportation, and it was developed at any cost. The cost is now too high, so we just roll it back. No torture required....

The way we doll out punishment in America ends up being a slap on the wrist for the rich and wealthy and devasting for the poor and minorities.

Here in Finland the record speeding ticked is over 100,000 euros.

One guy in Switzerland received $1 million speeding ticket for driving his Mercedes SLS AMG over 280 km/h. That's how hit should be.

Attorneys fees are more complicated and the general rule is actually that each party bears it’s own attorneys fees, but there are many execrations from statutes authorizing them in certain types of cases and situations or if a contract includes a provision providing for them. It’s possible one or more contracts I have with the bank includes such a provision, I’d have to look at my credit card agreement (it may even require mediation, but that’s part of the small claims process in my jurisdiction anyway). Also It’s typically not allowed that a lawyer representing themselves can be awarded fees.

There are other sorts of 'administrative' fees that are nearly impossible to waive. Things like license reinstatement, points surcharges, and costs from MVC (DMV) usually can't be waived by the court as it isn't the court that imposes them.

Did you try just going into the office of the clerk of the court with the receipt and saying "hey there's been a mistake."

Not sure that's the best solution here, but the assumption that "no one would do the work" is likely not correct.

I miss used bookstores, most of the big ones in my city have closed down

I'm not nearly old enough to remember prior to ATMs. But I love ATMs. I only have to go inside the bank to do things once every few years. Everything else is on the phone or ATM. And the people I deal with on the phone are almost always very helpful and knowledgeable.

I know people have a lot of trouble with some of the big banks like Bank of America and Chase. But those aren't issues with the banking industry but those specific companies. There's plenty of smaller banks and credit unions who don't exploit their customers at every opportunity.

Disclosure: I know several people working there but I have never used my contacts for preferential customer service, nor would I expect that the service could be better than the standard one.

Generally, I think that the incredible gains from automation are possible but require a lot of internal changes to make sense; changes that most companies do not have the leadership to conduct. This s why new actors often take advantage of those. I suspect that’s why Google replaced Encyclopedia Brittanica and countless more examples.

That said, even the system you're describing and with a 100% escalation rate should be cheaper than a fully manual process. The problem is that those "well meaning" companies aren't; their goal is to minimize cost, stopping only if it drops their revenue. But no system will be good with such goals.

Maybe that's the way to go. I know many volunteers answer Google's forums.

We would hope so. It could also mean far worse things are happening. We’ve all seen documentaries and news shows of people wrongly convicted. Why do we think the only incidences are the ones reported.

I’ve watched detectives lie on the stand when a guilty verdict was already in hand. Why do that? How do they treat the innocent if that’s how they act when the facts of the case are enough to convict?

To what degree? Based on first-order data, some populations really do commit more crime. However, we know that background/poverty is the real, underlying cause.

And even if we fed enough data to an algorithm to avoid that bias, avoiding the bias isn't enough. What you really want to do is tackle the cause. If the AI is a black box, you'd never know.

The problem with AI is almost always a lack of transparency, especially in the specific case, and not the general/overall case. Most training doesn't focus on this. Besides, the AI would limited by how good the bias tests we can come up with are.

Edit: For some use-cases, this general case optimisation is a feature, e.g. token customer service for cheap companies. Also much easier to control people who aren't that different.

And people trust it more because "computers can't be racist"

We're walking on razors edge here, it only takes one "election gone wrong" and we might find ourselves in a nightmare with no escape.

I now also live in an American city made for cars, not humans, so "jaywalking" is basically required to make any sane progress. So for grocery shopping, it'd take that trade-off.

There is no actual reasoning in your arguments why the fines should be the same for everybody, instead there is an argument why richer people should not be fined higher, while acknowledging that the height of a fine will impact people with differing levels of wealth in different ways.

Actually we need to think about why we are putting fines on people. The answer is: We want to deter bad behaviour. But if we take parking as an example: Some people do not mind a 25€ fine for bad parking because of their wealth so the fine doesn't work on them, while it works on other people. So our goal was to deter people from behaving in a certain way but we partially failed to do so. Now one option is to increase the ticket price for everyone (but I guess you are not arguing for that option). The other one is to attach the fine to income. The third option of doing nothing leads to a system where people can break the rules by being wealthy. But this is obviously one of the things that we seek to avoid in making rules for people to behave.

Why on earth should a fine punishing you for a crime try to encourage growth?

> I intend to get there one day with hard work so my family can be well off.

Oh, it's almost as if your kids will grow up with wealth that they didn't have to work to earn, thus not being anything to do with how hardworking or lazy they are. Almost as if they'll be born rich, falling upon immense luck.

Further if you actually look at the wealthy hard work has almost zero influence on the odds of being wealthy. Generally because you can pass wealth from person to person after it’s gained and the source is often just lucky.

PS: I am in my 30’s and have zero debt and six figure savings. By some standards that’s wealth by others it’s practically poverty. It’s the second version that people are talking about becase having even 7 figures in savings does not generate that much per year income. It’s when you start talking about 8-11 figures of wealth that the scale gets broken.

That is one way to frame the situation - there are many others, but in all your comments you act as if there is only one way to frame these things - yours, and all other ways are unfair, wrong, absurd etc. I'm not sure why.

Then there's your "Life should be unfair because life's unfair" argument:

"I think that punishment should only consider the crime. Anything else is discrimination. Those with less wealth can buy fewer apples, fewer burgers, and pay for fewer speeding tickets. Such is life."

But I guess in your framing of that, it's not unfair, because everyone who has twice the money has worked twice as hard. Maybe that is the situation when you compare yourself with some people you know - I guess that's where that comes from. But using that as if it applies to everyone in the world, leads to strange conclusions, or so it seems.

I guess everyone does the "applying situations in their life to the world" thing all the time, but you sound so far right-wing, I wonder if this it where that comes from - it's not uncommon in the media to hear wealthy people calling the poor lazy, or arguing there should be no welfare etc, sounding totally selfish and heartless. As if because they're ok, everyone else should be also. Maybe they just frame things like you do - "if they had worked harder they wouldn't be poor, if so it's because they're lazy." etc.

For one thing, some people become poor because of dealing with unexpected diseases, or bad accidents, or bad luck, or divorce, or..a multitude of things. Some people become wealthy for equally random reasons. Your model totally ignores all such things, as if "shit doesn't happen" in this world. And as if everyone starts out life with the same amount in the bank.

p.s. I appreciate you writing about your experience and beliefs on this page, thanks.

One day? You mean you aren’t rich yet? Sounds to me like you’re just a lazy bum making excuses.

/s

When you say > Designing laws around statistical outliers seem idiotic. The Dubai prince case is certainly not the norm.

I take you to be implying that outside of outliers, wealth is largely a matter of hard work, and poverty is largely a matter of laziness.

But that's the claim that I'm not aware of any evidence for. The Earth is full of extremely poor people who work nearly every waking hour.

There is no doubt some portion of the variance in wealth that's explained by hours worked after you control for other variables, but if your claim is that hours worked is a strong predictor of wealth, then that requires empirical support. It seems unlikely to me, but I'm not ruling it out.

That's another claim that it would be good to see some citations for.

If you work in salaried position where overtime is unpaid (as many HNers will) then more than 8 hours of work will bring you no financial gain other than in those toxic workplaces where unpaid overtime is seen as a virtue.

A person who works at minimum wage may work as hard as anyone else. Just look at all those who have to work two jobs to feed their family. I would think that if they had the opportunity to work harder at a single job and make more money, they would.