IF YOU’VE ever joked about your boss being a robot, stop laughing, they soon could be. A web service has launched that allows software algorithms to automatically recruit, hire and pay workers to do a wide variety of tasks.
“For the last 60 years, humans have controlled software – now we’re getting to the stage where software can control humans,” says Matt Barrie of Australian website Freelancer.com.
I’m all for progress and efficiency, and heaven knows I’ve spent enough time complaining about recruiters, but creep-o-matic.
This is a really bad idea. Only an unethical developer could have put this together, or at any rate objections of an ethical developer would have to be ignored for it to ever operate without supervision. Start asking people on the inside if automated trades have anything to do with some of the loony things happening on Wall Street.
More fundamentally, the salesperson (and anyone else, but especially the salesperson) lives on finding a way to "break the rules" without actually breaking the rules–to wit, how to get more money from customers while making them feel that they have a better bargain.
When you give a population of people a financial incentive to outwit a computer algorithm, you will attract the people who are capable of doing it.
In looking at the site, it's a real mixed bag. Half of the offers seem to be light graphic design (logos, animations, etc).
The other half is scammy as all hell. I keep seeing "400-500 word articles featuring SEO keywords for $1.00 each!", and similar requests. It sounds like a bunch of lazy site creators are just trying to jump google rankings.
The whole thing just smells funny. I was surprised not to see listings to brute force passwords and the like.
If it is legit, that was a poor choice of words, Matt Barrie.
Wow! Now I can use a web bot to hire others to spam for me…. HUMANS… ROFL!!!!!