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    Proposed norm: commute time = work time

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    CKirkby

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    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about norms in the employer-employee relationship.

    It seems quite obvious to me that if an employer is requiring an employee to commute to a job they have demonstrated they can do from home, then the commute time is work time and should be paid.

    Hourly time *and* expenses. These are unnecessary costs imposed by the employer that should be borne by the employer, not offloaded onto the employee.

    An employee’s “free” time should not be spent subsidizing their employers.

    (Thoughtful comments are welcome. (Your email address will not be published.))

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  • Coming soon?

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    CKirkby

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    One current area of interest is the gap (/gulf) between what would be useful for users and what providers provide.

    Like, if your goal is to actually communicate complex information to someone who doesn’t share your specialty, you will have to put the work into simplifying the explanation, interpreting it for a non-expert. It is unhelpful to send a page full of industry acronyms without even including a glossary. For example.

    Or, if you allow people to make appointments online and there is a screening question that rules them out, that screening question should be part of the online appointment process, not an on-site surprise once the person has already schlepped. This seems quite obvious.

    The broader theme is governments and employers and corporations that offload work that they should do onto each individual user to figure out for themself. It is inefficient. In many instances it seems actually designed to deter.

    I’ve been spending a lot of time lately refusing to be deterred. I intend to start posting about some of my projects here.

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    Complaining about journalism, which is not the path I chose

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    CKirkby

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    I’m having a lot of trouble “consuming” the news lately. It’s all so status quo all the time, when we quite clearly need non-status quo action.

    I want journalists to ask things like:

    “Okay, but what do 95% of subject matter experts say will be the consequence if you *don’t* do it?”

    Or, like:

    “Sure, but how many people are affected by this niche problem as compared to [huge societal problem you calculated won’t get you votes]?”

    I want news programs to stop giving politicians airtime when they refuse to answer the actual question asked.

    “The Minister said something you could copy-paste onto literally any news story tonight, so we’re not bothering with that clip.”

    I want it to be industry standard to hear from more than just different flavours of white dude the majority of the time.

    I want it to be considered negligence to not privilege the lived experience of people who are actually affected by life-and-death issues over the sound-bite vapidity of powerful people who are making lots of money but failing to solve things.

    I know that’s a hard / naive ask of journalists, who are subject to both financial pressures and status-quo-upholding rules about “balance.”

    But I wish more of the people who chose that path because they felt the need to put truth into the world would agree that the status quo needs to change.

    3 comments on Complaining about journalism, which is not the path I chose
  • ,

    Chatbot as agent

    Published by

    CKirkby

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    There is a sensible decision from the Civil Resolution Tribunal in British Columbia holding Air Canada responsible for its “customer service” chatbot (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/air-canada-must-honor-refund-policy-invented-by-airlines-chatbot). My position on “artificial intelligence” technology is:

    AI that searches a website to find you the correct information: good, helpful!

    AI that is presented as authoritative despite making shit up: obviously bad!

    The tribunal member didn’t even require an oral hearing for this nonsense. The decision itself is worth reading (https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/2024bccrt149.html), but here are my favourite excerpts:

    Understatement at para. 22: On February 8, an Air Canada representative responded and admitted the chatbot had provided “misleading words.”

    Helping the applicant at para. 24: While [the applicant] does not use the words specifically, by saying they relied on Air Canada’s chatbot, I find they are alleging negligent misrepresentation. Negligent misrepresentation can arise when a seller does not exercise reasonable care to ensure its representations are accurate and not misleading.

    Chastising Air Canada at para. 27: It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website. It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.

    Chastising Air Canada at para. 31: To the extent Air Canada argues it is not liable due to certain terms or conditions of its tariff, I note it did not provide a copy of the relevant portion of the tariff. … Air Canada is a sophisticated litigant that should know it is not enough in a legal process to assert that a contract says something without actually providing the contract. … It did not, so it has not proven a contractual defence.

    One final dig at the “sophisticated litigant” at para. 35:  In its boilerplate Dispute Response, Air Canada denies “each and every” one of Mr. Moffatt’s allegations generally. However, it did not provide any evidence to the contrary.

    I hope the precedent that entities are responsible for the garbage generated by their chatbots spreads. Customers should be able to rely on the information provided by customer service agents, whatever form that information takes.

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  • Gray bar

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    CKirkby

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    Apparently the basic paid plan with WordPress doesn’t include colours. That feels very budget airline to me, but I’m still not used to software as a subscription service.

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