Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be humans in the Philippines

Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by k-i-r-t-h-i on Thursday April 10, 2025 @08:38PM (#43649295)

I was wondering why there wasn't a DOJ concern when Amazon Go did the same thing:

> Amazon Go: Early on, Amazon was clear that it was testing “Just Walk Out” tech — and it was known (at least in tech circles) that they had humans reviewing edge cases through video feeds. Some even joked about the “humans behind the AI.” > Their core claim was that eventually the tech would get better, and the human backup was mostly for training data and quality assurance. > They didn’t say, “this is 100% AI with zero human help right now.”

> Nate: Claimed it was already fully automated. > Their CEO explicitly said the AI was doing all the work — “without human intervention” — and only used contractors for rare edge cases. > According to the DOJ, the truth was: humans were doing everything, and AI was just a branding tool. > Investors were told it was a software platform, when it was really a BPO in disguise.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by hobobaggins on Thursday April 10, 2025 @09:16PM (#43649498)

Amazon didn't raise money from credulous investors. Alphabet's Waymo was also having humans take over for some of the driving as well.

And everyone knows that ChatGPT Pro is exclusively powered by capuchin monkeys.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by AlotOfReading on Thursday April 10, 2025 @10:29PM (#43649943)

There are some pretty major differences between what Waymo does and what a remote driving service (like the Vegas deployment by Vay mentioned upthread). Imagine that the car has a remote connection to a human while driving and the human misses that another vehicle is about to hit T-bone the taxi. Whose responsibility is it to stop?

With Waymo vehicles, it's the car's responsibility to sense the issue and brake, so we say that the car is driving and the human is a "remote assistant". With Vay, it's the human's responsibility because they are the driver.

This ends up having a lot of meaningful distinctions across the stack, even if it seems like a superficial distinction at first.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by bluesnews on Thursday April 10, 2025 @09:30PM (#43649583)

It is a public company, so someone could be investing on the basis of that technology

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by pempem on Friday April 11, 2025 @01:40AM (#43650806)

Not even just someone. Analysts posting about it. Press picking it up. Jim Cramer sharing his 'thoughts' lol.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by konfusinomicon on Thursday April 10, 2025 @10:48PM (#43650036)

i continuously asked for an optimized database schema several times and all i keep getting is these damn shakespeare sonnets. starting to wonder if they are on to something...

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by lt_kernelpanic on Friday April 11, 2025 @03:16AM (#43651279)

You're getting sonnets? For some reason, I've been getting "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times".

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by smegma2 on Friday April 11, 2025 @11:39AM (#43655100)

> Alphabet's Waymo was also having humans take over for some of the driving as well.

Not sure if this used to be the case but today Waymos can’t be controlled remotely by humans, only ‘guided’: https://www.govtech.com/transportation/waymo-robotaxis-getti... (ctrl+f “cannot be controlled”)

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by kylecazar on Thursday April 10, 2025 @08:44PM (#43649328)

I had no idea. There was an Amazon Go right in my workplace in 2019 (Brookfield Place) and I got lunches there almost daily. I loved it -- felt like magic, and it was crazy fast. I guess it was just an illusion (as all magic is).

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by bombcar on Friday April 11, 2025 @07:05AM (#43652550)

There was something similar run by a German university near the hotel I was staying at. As an American I had to use the cashier like normal but they had signs about how the Amazon-Go like process the students were experimenting with would work, including picture and descriptions on how to help it not be confused.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by cratermoon on Thursday April 10, 2025 @09:03PM (#43649421)

Exactly. In this case it's pretty clear how Nate was defrauding investors with the claims. Amazon Go made fraudulent claims, but not only had the legal savvy to hedge those claims, they didn't directly raise fund from investors based on those claims.

IANAL, of course.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by nyarlathotep_ on Thursday April 10, 2025 @09:47PM (#43649692)

Yeah, how quickly we forget.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by gamblor956 on Thursday April 10, 2025 @09:06PM (#43649436)

AI standards for "actually Indians."

It's the same tech used at Intuit Dome for the food stalls.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by bashtoni on Thursday April 10, 2025 @08:58PM (#43649400)

Sadly, I think we all know the answer - because laws don't apply to large corporations or wealthy, powerful individuals in the same way they apply to the rest of us.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by Dylan16807 on Friday April 11, 2025 @12:58AM (#43650628)

> I was wondering why there wasn't a DOJ concern when Amazon Go did the same thing:

"Mostly AI, but they failed at getting close enough to 100%" and "effectively 0% AI" are not the same thing.

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Re:Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be hu... by sschueller on Friday April 11, 2025 @12:30PM (#43655664)

Elon has also made a lot of claims over the years. Where is FSD or whatever they call it now? The whole solar roof tiles presentation was a lie at the time. P2P Starship travel is impossible but is being "sold" to the public as possible and many other things.

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