Technology

Never rent a car from Hertz, check.

They know it doesn't work this is just a cash grab by rental car companies hoping to squeeze extra profit knowing most people won't fight it under the guise of digital transformation.

I get why they'd use something like this to save money and time but, is suspect that correct use would include a human check before charging people.

We need to start pushing for laws on this kind of thing. Automated checks are fine if you, as the company, trust they won't have too many false negatives. If you aren't checking for false positives, though, you should be heavily fined for each false report. $25,000 per false report sounds like a good place to start. Hopefully that would be large enough to not just be the cost of doing business.

Oh, so Hertz has gotten wise to... every online platform that exists: Outsourcing all responsibility for their user-hostile bullshit to some vague "system" that cannot be held accountable.

I'm so sorry but the advertised cost has doubled because... Computer says so! No, sir, there's nothing I can do, sir, you see it's the system.

And you can't go anywhere else, because everyone else is doing it (or soon will be) too!

"AI is a disaster." Fixed it for you.

I think it's generally a brilliant solution but there are a couple of problems here:

1. The scanner seems to flag fucking everything and charge for minor damage where a human would probably flag it as wear.
2. No one is allowed to correct the scanner:

Perturbed by the apparent mistake, the user tried to speak to employees and managers at the Hertz counter, but none were able to help, and all "pointed fingers at the 'AI scanner.'" They were told to contact customer support — but even that proved futile after representatives claimed they "can’t do anything."

Sounds to me like they're just trying to replace those employees. That's why they won't let them interfere.

The term AI itself is a shifting of goalposts. What was AI 50 years ago* is now AGI, so we can call this shit AI though it's nothing of the sort. And everybody's falling for the hype: governments, militaries, police forces, care providers, hospitals... not to speak of the insane amounts of energy & resources this wastes, and other highly problematic, erm, problems. What a fucking disaster.

If it wasn't for those huge caveats I'd be all for it. Use it for what it can do (which isn't all that much), research it. But don't fall for the shit some tech bro envisions for us.

* tbf fucking around with that term probably isn't a new thing either, and science itself is divided on how to define it.

It's on brand. I pity the fool that doesn't know hertz is a fucked up rental agency

I will bring this up again like I did my last post concerning Hertz.

While I was in Albuquerque, NM getting off the Amtrak train, I reserved our rental car from their website and went to the nonexistent address with no phone number or anything. After half an hour we called another Hertz and they basically told us to piss off and call the location we booked the car. I have few brands that I boycott and now they will be Nestle products (and sub companies) and Hertz.

Sounds like that shit with dodgy smoking detection in a hotel from last week..

I wonder what a credit card dispute would result in here. Underutilized feature when businesses pull shady shit. Think I've had 6 or so disputes over the years, never failed.

You mean an LLM that doesn't have the ability to understand context fails to make decisions that require context to do properly? Shocking /s

I am 0% surprised that Hertz would be the first in the US to roll this out. Expecting a Steve Lehto YouTube video about it within the next three days ...

I'd ask for the stupid AI scanning system to scan my car before I agree to renting it. Once they sign off on the 'all clear' notification from their AI scanner before rental, then I'd consider renting it .... but after reading this headline, I'd probably just tell them, I'm spending a few hundred dollars more on renting a car from someone else.

Okay so...in the rare event I need to rent a car, any suggestions on who to use that isn't Hertz and sister companies?