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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

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[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Japan supermarket chain uses AI to gauge staff smiles, speech tones in quality service push (South China Morning Post).

Called “Mr Smile”, it was developed by the Japanese technology company InstaVR and is said to be able to accurately rate a shop assistant’s service attitude.

It has also been designed with “game” elements that invite staff to improve their attitude by challenging their scores.

The company said its goal was to “standardise staff members’ smiles and satisfy customers to the maximum”.

Thanks I hate it

Press release here: https://www.aeonretail.jp/pdf/240701R_1.pdf or here: https://www.instavr.co.jp/news/aeon-retail-smile-2024-07-01/ (Lots of big words so I didn't try to read it)

InstaVR's English website here: https://www.instavr.co/

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 16 points 5 months ago

What if instead of making robots better we just made interacting with a real person indistinguishable by demanding they conform to arbitrary metrics that the brain-slugs that control our minds think look like genuine human warmth and kindness?

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 16 points 5 months ago

standardise staff members’ smiles

Completely normal and chill thing to want

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago

Previous workplace merged with a US company that among other things offered "sentiment analysis" for call centers - the software was supposed to detect if someone was upset or irate. Could be used to help employees deal with irate customers, but could also detect if an employee was rude or stressed. Same software could be used to ensure employees used certain stock phrases like "welcome to InitTech, how may I help you?"

Point is, tech has been used to enforce conformity since well forever.

[-] maol@awful.systems 6 points 5 months ago
[-] o7___o7@awful.systems 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

@cstross

Looks like someone took the wrong lesson from Quantum of Nightmares!

Edit: Enjoyed the book, btw. Felt weird about shopping for groceries for most of a year afterward. A++

this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
32 points (100.0% liked)

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