Airbnb has software that searches social media to identify creeps and psychopaths

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/07/airbnb-has-software-that-searc.html

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the concept sounds like a good idea and goes downhill fast. like that black mirror episode where they score people based on all their daily interactions.

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I would like to see a certain orange-hued, former reality-⊥V celebrity’s score, according to this algorithm…

A bit more seriously, I’m not sure I have a problem with this. Being unable, inexplicably, to use the services of AirBnB would just force someone to use a legitimate hotel.

You know, the kind that is regulated by laws and pays taxes somewhat related to the burden placed by its guests on the local infrastructure.

It’s when a government starts using this algorithm that we have a problem.

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show signs of “neuroticism and involvement in crimes," “narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy” or “are perceived as untrustworthy.”

That’s my childhood home in a nut shell.

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So, not that he would ever but, trump and his family would be AirBnB banned for life.

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Here we go again… Take any thing that people have been doing for ages, add “with artificial intelligence” to it, and get a junk patent. See also: “with a computer” and “on the Internet”.

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Or like China.

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Wow. Only creeps or psychopaths use alcohol or other drugs or only creeps or psychopaths post about alcohol or other drugs? That’s a lot of people one way or the other.

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The background check technology was revealed in a patent issued by the European Patent Office and published in the US last year.

I think it’s a bit annoying when news articles say something like this and don’t bother including the actual publicly-available patent references.

It looks like the WIPO filing is WO2016/043826, initially assigned to Trooly? There are two granted US patents, but I don’t see the issued EP patent.

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I don’t have any social media accounts (at least not with my real name), does that make me a pariah?

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It will be like paying for everything in cash- no credit score is a bad credit score.
Maybe you can have a fake Facebook with platitude memes, for social credit score building.

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Similar. I’ve been told that my social media presence (doesn’t post selfies, doesn’t post a lot of personal information, doesn’t post very often) meets common AI criteria for “possible bot”.

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Don’t forget the part where they sell that junk to other companies - for use in dating sites and apps - then profit!

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He had walked several kilometres over pavements, and his varicose ulcer was throbbing. This was the second time in three weeks that he had missed an evening at the Community Centre on Facebook: a rash act, since you could be certain that the number of your attendances at the Centre posts was carefully checked.
In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreation social media activity: to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: OWNLIFE, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity.

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Not to mention sex work. This is some seriously puritanical, paternalistic bullshit claiming to determine who is “fit” to function in society.

Whoops, just

with an account name that is not my legal name, so, technically

so I guess I am a creep. Oh well, so are most of us here, I guess.

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I agree with everything except where you said “the concept sounds like a good idea”. Have you seen the movie Brazil?

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ha. yeah. but thats kinda what im getting at. lots of things can kinda sound like a good idea until you think about the consequences. who wouldnt wanna keep out creeps… but wait how are we defining “creeps” and who gets to decide? and heck dont creeps have some rights too?

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  1. Send lawyer thugs to the companies that didn’t buy the junk, and urge them to pay the patentgeld.
  2. Find a good junk patent legal venue, and sue.
  3. Profit!
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Cant Trust It

To quote Public Enemy:

“Oh, no, no, NO!”

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A better starting point would be allowing hosts to refuse to rent to folks who are locals - as that is the overwhelming key that someone is renting a party house so they don’t trash their own place.

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