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Comment by bthrn | Hacker News Reader

It's funny how employers try to rationalize this -- take Coinbase, for example: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/how-coinbase-is-embracing-ai-i...

> While some worry AI will dehumanize the hiring process, we believe the opposite. Deploying AI will enable more quality interactions, more quickly for the candidates who are the best fit for our jobs– without unnecessary administrative tasks or distractions. We fully believe in AI’s ability to build depth and breadth in our selection process, while acknowledging that the road ahead will have its challenges. Let’s face it: the candidates who want to work at Coinbase are as enthusiastic about AI as we are. They, like us, are optimistic about the future of this (and all) technology.

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"While some worry AI will dehumanize the hiring process, we believe the opposite."

"AI will create jobs instead of destroying them."

"AI will solve the climate crisis despite doubling or tripling humanity's energy footprint."

At some point it became acceptable to lie to the public with a straight face.

This is some I've thought about more lately. It's taboo to use the word "lie" and accuse people of lying... I am attempting to use it in my vocabulary more and more, when appropriate. Which is surprisingly often.

I've been wondering for a while why society only has one word for all the different forms of lying. Lying by omission, lying intentionally, lying because you dont know, lying to save yourself, lying without thinking, lying for self benefit there are more... These should all get their own words so that we can always pinpoint exactly which version we think the other person did instead of having to shout "you lied!!111" and then nobody knows what on earth you are talking about.

I completely agree! Perhaps in lieu of words for these related but different concepts, we could use these full descriptions, as you wrote.

I've noticed the word "bullshit" is making a big comeback, which is encouraging to me. Because, good Lord, is there ever so much bullshit.

You may be interested in https://mourner.github.io/bullshit.js/

Oh that's a good one too!

Very appropriate as well because the machines are given a bunch of feed to digest multiple times and to spew it out the other end as a big steaming pile.

Although I don't think the comparison is 100% fair: at least you can get some tasty beef off of a bull.

You might enjoy this paper on how ChatGPT is Bullshit: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

Thank you. Applying this applet to TFA honestly improves its accuracy tenfold:

  Bullshit interviewers are only the newest change to the hiring process that has been upended by the advanced bullshit. With HR teams dwindling and hiring managers bullshitted to bullshit thousands of applicants for a single role, they’re optimizing their jobs by using Bullshit to filter top applicants ...

I feel like we are already there. That these people are allowed to keep the profits they made through lying and environmental destruction-- ("um well actually compared to generations past we are much greener")-- is the most telling flaw in the system.

They aren't penalized at all for lying, and not lying is a massive loss of potential profit. So then, why not lie, is their logic.

We are much greener though, at least in the West. Climate emissions peaked in Europe and North America in the last few decades (earlier in Europe.) In Europe, forests are growing back, because marginal agricultural land is being returned to forests as yields rise on prime land. I think this is beginning to happen in the US as well.

This doesn't mean climate change isn't a problem, because even with this progress, we're way behind and not moving nearly fast enough. But often it's the green side of the spectrum that's lying by catastrophizing and understating progress, while overstating the severity of what's happening.

It's happening similarly with AI, where the green movement has decided that AI is unacceptable, even though it has a tiny ecological footprint compared to activities like watching Netflix or eating nuts, let alone eating beef or flying on a plane.

That's right. So essentially we are in a deadlock where every side says "im only contributing fractionally to the problem", and nobody on Earth really has the full capability of blocking the activities you described from happening, especially not when there is good money to be made (e.g coal mining vs AI vs raising cows)

Doesn't seem like a bright future, but at least AI does have a chance of solving the problem while contributing to it. No other behavior could really say the same.

You're still missing it, we are not in a deadlock. Developed countries are in fact decarbonizing. China too is decarbonizing, though they're behind where the West is, but their goal is to peak their emissions by 2030.

In fact, it's kind of the opposite of what you say—everyone is contributing fractionally to the solution. This is what climate doomers miss.

Ok, so your opinion is that in X number of years, we may well hit some new level of decarbonization where we have severely contained or reversed the effects of climate change and so on, thanks to a relatively decentralized cooperation between all countries, even historical bad actors.

My position is that that is all theatre, that even if we do achieve that it will be temporary (nth industrial revolution, nuclear war, etc), and that we will eventually be the cause of our own worldwide collapse-- all while thinking we have control to the very end.

I mean, if you're that fatalistic, why worry about AI (or even climate change) in particular? If we're all just doomed no matter what, you may as well just enjoy what you can from life and not stress too much about any particular development.

Oh right change my mindset from despair to joy. Great move, let me just flick the switch.

Why feel sad when can feel happy. Me dummy.

China is not decarbonising. It's emissions are rocketing up.

There has always been an expectation that corporations are lying to us.

What's so insulting about Coinbase here is they are not even trying to make their lies sound plausible anymore.

We lost plausible deniability in the last ten years

That moment was when one of Satan's little helpers whispered into the ear of a PR officer: "you're misunderstood; you only have to communicate it better."

“war is peace”, “ignorance is strength”…

Also reminiscent of the old Onion article from the Bush Jr. era invasion of Iraq: "This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t"

https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mi...

> Let’s face it: the candidates who want to work at Coinbase are as enthusiastic about AI as we are. They, like us, are optimistic about the future of this (and all) technology.

Yet Anthropic didn't want people to use AI as part of interviewing for them.

This is the answer -- AI interviewers should only get AI agents of candidates.

Indeed. Pretty soon all jobs will be filled by bots.

Exactly. A good interview process is marked by minimising the asymmetry. You're two parties getting to know each other, with the aim of working out a mutually beneficial deal.

If I'm not allowed a level ground, I will not play.

Are these interviews over video? If so, I guarantee we’ll see reports of AI rating nonwhite candidates lower, and nobody will do anything about it because nobody will care.

Coinbase is a biz built by people willing to sell shovels to the cryptocurrency speculators. They've already filtered themselves as folks with questionable morals. They're like a cigarette manufaturer.

seconded, I saw their job description and decided not to apply. i don't know what they are thinking, but I would not bat an eye if they added that employees are expected to "work 80h a week", and not take any of "unlimited PTO".

This is prime HR style lying. The response is: Problem statement. Claim that reality is the opposite of the problem statement, with no justification given, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Statement that if reality doesn't match their claim, the worker is at fault. End of statement.

Dystopian, infuriating, unethical and immoral.

> While some worry AI will dehumanize the hiring process, we believe the opposite.

Look at the language Coinbase uses. Only their view is a "belief." The opposing view is a "worry." Others are motivated by fear. Only holy Coinbase is motivated by love!

This is, of course, doublethink. We all know that removing humans from the hiring process is, by definition, dehumanizing.

Coinbase's article would have been more palatable if it were truthful:

> Some believe AI will dehumanize the hiring process. We agree, and we're SO excited about that! I mean, we aren't in this business to make friends. We're in it to make cold, hard cash. And the less we have to interact with boring, messy human beings along the way, the better! If you're cold, calculating and transactional like us, sign on the dotted line, and let's make some dough!

But if they were that truthful, fun, and straightforward, they'd probably be more social, and they wouldn't have this dehumanizing hiring process to begin with.

Companies shouldn't be making business decisions based on "belief" or "worry." Show the research that demonstrates which one is actually true.

Why would you expect them to show you the research? They have no reason. to do so and probably believe you’ll find it distasteful if they did

The fact that a communist dictatorship declares itself to be a benevolent people's paradise, doesn't change the brutal reality one bit. And unlike living under a communist dictatorship, we don't have to accept it. I will strongly vote for those who make this shit illegal.

>Let’s face it: the candidates who want to work at Coinbase are as enthusiastic about AI as we are.

Perhaps. But their enthusiasm is not to talk to themselves alone int a room to a chatbot, but to work on solving interesting problems. Hopefully alongside other enthusiastic people.

I'm not surprised. I have colleagues who worked there and they have a very toxic work culture.

"Let's face it: the only people that should pass this interview are those that build an AI response bot to pass the test for them. Then we can both get to talking human-to-human."

> Then we can both get to talking human-to-human.

No. That's when you get to talk to my second AI.

I mean if these words are true, then all their candidates will work hard to game the system with their own AI-abusing AIs of their own. So hopefully they will be inundated with a thousand applicants and only one or two respond at all and say "now you have to beat my other 100 offers, begin"

Well, Coinbase is crypto, right? THey've already made a horrible ehtical decision by getting into that, so might as well double down and add in some biased AI. The candidates who want to work at Coinbase are as enthusiastic as any grift as they are.

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