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California May Ban Lyft And Uber From AI Price Gouging Users With Low Phone Batteries
(www.jalopnik.com)
As if that shouldn't have been a thing to begin with.
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
151 points (99.3% liked)
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Corporations are there to maximize profits. Not defending them, that's just what they are.
Remember when basically all CEOs were espousing how their company was working to make the world a better place? No one even pretends anymore
And this is why profits above a certain threshold need to be taxed to oblivion.
Massive profit cannot be the single goal.
Taxation is a bandaid solution. Strong taxation is also not realistic as long as the nation is dependant on the economic growth of their domnestic companies.
You can't build a sustainable economy based on a system which has the competition of free agents at its base.
Like those stupid broomsticks from fantasia
How is that AI related at all and not just an if statement and a couple statistical regressions to find an economically optimal battery percentage to price multiplier?
Any time software makes a decision it is apparently considered AI now because that makes for a divisive headline
if (battery < 15) { cost *= 1.20; }
LOOK I WROTE AN AI ALL BY MYSELF
I'll pay you 1 billion dollars to integrate that AI into my novel cloud connected toilet paper dispenser!
If they build a model which uses charge level as an input to predict the price they're willing to pay, that would be using AI.
It is weird how that makes it worse. Not just we knew there was a possibility you could be desperate so we raised the price, but more we know exactly how desperate you are...
We had "enterprise" lessons of sort. One of the topics was "brand message to make the world a better place". I was 15yo back then, but even as a stupid kid I saw it as enormous bullshit
Vincent Van Gouging… huh 🤔