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DraftKings is using AI to behaviorally target chronic gamblers

570 points · 432 comments · paimapi

  1. tedivm · · focus · HN ↗
    ProPublica had one of their reports work with gambling addition experts to see how DraftKings would respond to someone presenting signs of a gambling problem. It's a hell of a read, and makes it clear that this company is full of people with absolutely no ethics whatsoever.

    <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;draftkings-sports-gambling-problem-vip-fanduel" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;draftkings-sports-gamblin...

    1. groestl · · focus · HN ↗
      IMHO one shouldn&#x27;t expect a company to have any ethics to achieve a positive outcome for society. This needs to be baked into the rules (taxes, regulation, ...), so the ethical behavior becomes the rational behavior.
      1. Barrin92 · · focus · HN ↗
        companies are a fiction made out of people, they don&#x27;t have anything, and regardless what the rules are I expect those people to behave ethically at any given time.

        I&#x27;m not entirely sure when people started to have this idea that when they walk through a company door, as if this is some magical portal into the realm of amorality, give up their human responsibilities and faculties

        1. Henchman21 · · focus · HN ↗
          It started with Milton Friedman and the idea that The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits -- full stop, nothing else.

          That frees one to think in a different way. No longer constrained by the convention of the common good, some folks, for instance, watched the movie &quot;Wall Street&quot;, and took it not as the warning it so clearly was, but rather as in instruction manual. The wider populace believes this nonsense because it was passed on to us via Television, the Great Glowing Box of Truth that for the big chunk of the 20th century was the arbiter of reality.

          Now we have people so confused by this bullshit and so in need of viewing themselves as &quot;temporary poor&quot; that they vote against their own interests on a regular basis.

          Fortunately, the changing climate will wipe us out. :)

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