Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

  • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
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    1 day ago

    I was thinking the same thing, considering that I have less money to pay to fly my price should be lower, no? But the article ends on this note:

    Early research on personalized pricing isn’t favorable for the consumer. Consumer Watchdog found that the best deals were offered to the wealthiest customers—with the worst deals given to the poorest people, who are least likely to have other options.

    So basically the opposite of what it should be. I wouldnt mind individualized pricing if it meant Delta was robinhooding with their pricing model, but instead they are effectively using their pricing model to force out poorer consumers. Which makes sense from their perspective I suppose considering they can upsell more shit to people with more money.

    As someone who lives in a top-wealth zipcode (as a working class person) I assume by next year this means I will no longer be able to afford to fly out of town…

    Its starting to make sense why the GOP was working to ban regulation on AI use. This shit is blatantly unethical

    • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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      There is no fucking way that that is sustained simply due to the fact that people would BURN THIS PLACE DOWN if companies start doing shit like that. No one has money as it is. I’m not convinced we’re not going to burn it down as it is.

      These elites has truly lost the plot and are going so far down the comic book villain lane, they’re going to start dying like comic book villains. Dunked in acid, frozen solid, crushed by their exploding submarine, eaten by their own rabid experiments… Who knows, but I’m excited to find out.

      • TJA!@sh.itjust.works
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        People will not do anything. They might complain on Lemmy/Reddit/Facebook and then go watch another tiktok

      • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Uber started this shit years ago. If you’re desperate, they screw you. You’re well off, they screw you. You’re in the middle of nowhere, they screw you. There’s a holiday/event, they screw you. You’re one of their drivers, they screw you daily.

        I can’t recall if they ever got sued over it, but they’re still here.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        people would BURN THIS PLACE DOWN if companies start doing shit like that.

        Based on what? People will not do shit.

        • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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          Based on them literally starving. This is a deranged idea that will infect every aspect of your life if you let it. And when it does, people will starve. There will be violence. That’s my point.

          They may abuse us and torture us, but they are psychopathic about it that they are not leaving any bread of circuses. When those end, the top dies. That’s how society works throughout history.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Look around, dum dum. You see any shit burning to the ground? You think manipulating airline pricing is gonna do it?

        • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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          This isn’t about fucking flight prices. This is a testing ground. You think it’s going to remain relegated to airlines? If this works out for delta, you’ll see this in grocery stores, in all entertainment, any subscriptions, every single transaction will be reduced to: what is the most you Are physically able to pay currently?

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      worst deals given to the poorest people, who are least likely to have other options

      (emphasys mine)

      Financially, giving the higher price to those who have fewer options is exactly “what it should be” so it makes sense that a pattern finding algorithm trained to find patterns in user data that indicate they are likely to agree to higher prices, produces such a result.

      It’s Ethically and Morally that this is the very opposite of “what it should be”.