People love this stuff if it benefits them. It even gets cheered on when the receiving end can be reduced to something disliked, like a big corporation or a bureaucracy.
There was a startup that would fight traffic and parking tickets for you and everyone loved the idea. Until, that is, you realize that the company is doing automated requests to jam up your local government systems with extra work. The ticketing agents and government workers who have to put in extra time on these cases don't really care because it's no different than any other work. In some cases they might be able to get some overtime.
The real losers are people who have legitimate complaints who get backlogged behind a thousand automated requests from people who asked ChatGPT to try to fight something for them.
Then later, we all lose when the only way to contest things is to go to a physical location in person and prove that it's you trying to do it, not the bot.
Already seeing this with job applications, too: Apply for a job and you'll be mixed in with 1000 automated submissions. Do the interview remotely and they'll be wondering if you're cheating. Now you have to fly on site for middle interview stages to prove that it's you, not a bot, who can answer the questions.
[–] hansonkd 3 days ago
[–] Aurornis 3 days ago
You're missing the important part where people with legitimate complaints are being crowded out by these frivolous attempts to avoid fines. Everyone loses when filing automated frivolous complaints becomes the default response to getting a parking ticket, for example.
> Same with the job search. if so many companies didn't make it a pain to input your information, maybe they could get more sympathy.
I think you’re confused about the problem. I wasn’t asking you to be sympathetic to employers. I’m saying that the application and interview system abusers are ruining it for real, honest job applicants.
Again, the spammers are taking away from legitimate applicants
[–] jimmydorry 3 days ago
[–] nhinck2 3 days ago
[–] Aurornis 2 days ago
If you create a service that might get someone out of a fine via a loophole or by creating friction, many will take that opportunity to take the chance.
It would be very unreasonable to think that most of the people trying these services were simply wronged by the government and we must support them all.
> Have you never received a fine for parking legally?
I have not, but I have had to deal with another government problem that was a mistake. I would not want to have that process backlogged behind 1000 other automated requests from people trying their luck at getting out of fines they really deserved because they had ChatGPT start filing things for them because it didn’t cost them anything.
> If the system was perfect, they wouldn't offer a way to contest them.
At this point I think you’re just deliberately ignoring the problem we’re discussing.
We know a system exists for a reason. We are not talking about people using the system for legitimate reasons.
We are talking about the problem that occurs when the cost of filing a request goes to zero so everyone starts doing it automatically in response to any fine.
[–] kurthr 3 days ago
[–] cykros 3 days ago
Anyone that doesn't adapt their development process will just get ripped to shreds with their vulnerabilities and the market will do its thing.
But in the meantime, expect at least a few months and maybe years of the question of "what is sleep?" from the security crowd.
Same with the job search. if so many companies didn't make it a pain to input your information, maybe they could get more sympathy.