In this edition
Suing the Dashboard
Uber drivers launch European class action over ‘soulless’ and ‘scary’ AI algorithm - theguardian.com Open with the moment of deactivation: a driver logs in, the score has dropped, the account is gone, and nobody at the company can explain the maths. Land on the detail that the review of an automated decision is itself automated — there is no human at the end of the chain, only a form. Abby frames it as ordinary people locked out of their own work by a system they can't read; Boyd's colder read is that 'soulless' flatters it — a human dispatcher was never soulful either, the real story is a company that has outsourced blame to a program it also cannot explain, which is very convenient. Do not overstate the legal position: this is a class action being launched, not a judgment, and nobody has won anything yet. Keep it about the black box and the missing appeal, not about anyone's hardship.
AI scams, fraud and courtrooms
Meanwhile
Sharp Mixed Spectral Barron Regularity of Coulombic Many-Electron Wave Functions
arXiv cs.LG
Paid to Clean Up After the Robot
Freelancers are getting buried with ‘soulless’ AI slop cleanup: ‘It’s a shame we need to do it’ Open on the reader who walked into a bookshop and asked for a title that has never been written. Land on the specific failure: a freelancer compiling recommendations never checked whether the books existed, and neither did anyone between him and the printing press. Abby over-attaches — she wants to read the fake novels, they sound wonderful, someone should write them; Boyd is cold about the supply chain, a syndicated section that passed through an editor, a subeditor and a printer without one person opening a search engine. This is where Boyd may crack: the fact that the cheapest possible check was the one nobody performed. Don't moralise about journalism dying — it is funnier as a story about laziness meeting a very confident machine.
The Guardian Technology
Slop, or Not?
An AI program writing police reports claimed a Utah cop turned into a frog because the body camera picked up audio from a Disney movie in the background. Read the claim, read the frog, deliver the verdict flat. The line to land is that the software could not tell the difference between a witness and a Disney soundtrack, and put amphibious shape-shifting into a legal record. Verdict: slop, and Boyd should not soften it.
Police1
Transcript
0:07 Cold Open
AbbyWelcome to The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] Where nothing we say becomes the truth.
Abby[excited] Later on — a police report that says an officer turned into a frog—
Boyd[jumping in] —because a television was on in the background. [statement] Police1 has it. [short pause] It is not a metaphor.
Abby[laughs] It's the best thing I've read all year. [thoughtful] You look like you've read a tax form.
Boyd[snappy] I've read a legal document. [short pause] Start us somewhere with a straight face, Abby.
Abby[statement] Fine. Let's start with the drivers who are suing a dashboard.
0:38 Suing the Dashboard
Abby[statement] So this is the Guardian, this morning. Uber drivers in Europe are launching a class action over the algorithm that manages them — and the words the drivers use, in the headline, are soulless [short pause] and scary.
Boyd[snappy] Launching. [statement] Not won. Nobody has won anything yet.
AbbyNo, agreed, it's the very start of it. But think about who the defendant effectively is here — it's not a person, it's a score. Your number moves, and the work—
Boyd[cut in] —stops arriving. Yes.
Abby[excited] And that's my whole thing! If a manager fires you, there's a manager. There's a face, there's a room, there's someone who has to say the sentence out loud. Here there's a login screen that's just... quieter than it was yesterday.
Boyd[thoughtful] Hm. [short pause] I'd push back on one word. Soulless flatters it.
Abby[disbelief] Flatters it?
Boyd[snappy] A human dispatcher was never soulful either. He had favourites and a bad back. [statement] The difference isn't soul. The difference is that he could be asked why.
Abby[short pause] Okay. That's darker than mine and I think it's better.
Boyd[statement] It's convenient, is what it is. If the decision came out of a program, the company gets to be as puzzled as you are. [suspicious] Same shrug, better lawyers.
AbbyAnd the bit I keep circling — and this is us wondering, not the court saying — [short pause] if a machine decides, and you appeal, what's actually reading the appeal? Over to you, Boyd. What's your honest guess?
Boyd[long pause] My honest guess is a form. [snappy] And the form is fine. The form is having a lovely day.
Abby[sigh] Right. [statement] Class action's been launched, that's the fact, everything after that is two people in a room being nervous.
2:46 Meanwhile
AbbyMeanwhile. arXiv cs.LG: Sharp Mixed Spectral Barron Regularity of Coulombic Many-Electron Wave Functions.
2:57 Paid to Clean Up After the Robot
Boyd[snappy] Second thing. The Guardian, technology desk. Companies are hiring freelancers — not to make things, [short pause] to fix the things the machine made.
Abby[surprised] Oh. So the job is janitor.
Boyd[statement] Their example is a graphic designer in Spain. She goes by Lisa; she asked not to be fully named. Before ChatGPT she got slow one-off jobs — logos, packaging. After, it's an onslaught of requests to repair generated versions. [snappy] Sharpening fuzzy images so they'll print. Turning flawed designs into usable files.
Abby[thoughtful] Hang on, though — that's still work. That's a person getting paid. I want to be positive about—
Boyd[jumping in] —ninety percent. [statement] By 2025, that's her figure, ninety percent of the logo work coming in was cleanup.
Abby[disbelief] Ninety.
Boyd[snappy] Her number, her account, in that piece. And the headline quote is a freelancer saying it's a shame we need to do it.
Abby[sigh] Okay, that took the wind out of it a bit. I had a whole speech about new careers.
Boyd[thoughtful] The strange part is — no. Start again. [short pause] The strange part is that the machine's output is confident enough to send to a client and not good enough to print. [statement] That's a very specific quality of bad.
Abby[laughs] Confident and unprintable. Put it on a mug.
Boyd[long pause] A file was generated in four seconds and then repaired by a professional for a fee, and both of those are described as efficiency. [snappy] Alright. Anyway.
4:46 Slop, or Not?
Boyd[snappy] Slop, or not?
Abby[excited] Slop or not! The frog! Do the frog!
Boyd[statement] The claim: software is ready to draft official police reports. A Utah department is testing it — this is Police1. [short pause] The report the software produced says an officer turned into a frog.
Abby[disbelief] Because—
Boyd[cut in] —because the body camera picked up a nearby television playing The Princess and the Frog. [snappy] It listened to a Disney film and entered amphibious shape-shifting into official police records.
Abby[laughs] It couldn't tell a witness from a soundtrack.
Boyd[statement] Slop. [short pause] Not softening it.
5:24 Tomorrow
AbbyTomorrow — we go back to that Utah software, and who exactly signs a report a machine wrote.
Boyd[snappy] And whether the frog gets a lawyer.
AbbyWe're The Daily Slop Show.
BoydNone of this becomes true just because we said it. See you tomorrow.
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