In today’s episode of “AI Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” we feature the Hertz Corporation and its new AI-powered rental car damage scanners. Gone are the days when an overworked human in a snappy windbreaker would give your rental return a once-over with the old Mark Ones to make sure you hadn’t messed the car up too badly. Instead, Hertz is fielding up to 100 of these “MRI scanners for cars.” The “damage discovery tool” uses cameras to capture images of the car and compares them to a model that’s apparently been trained on nothing but showroom cars. Redditors who’ve had the displeasure of being subjected to this thing report being charged egregiously high damage fees for non-existent damage. To add insult to injury, if renters want to appeal those charges, they have to argue with a chatbot first, one that offers no path to speaking with a human. While this is likely to be quite a tidy profit center for Hertz, their customers still have a vote here, and backlash will likely lead the company to adjust the model to be a bit more lenient, if not outright scrapping the system.
Have you ever picked up a flashlight and tried to shine it through your hand? You probably have; it’s just a thing you do, like the “double tap” every time you pick up a power drill. We’ve yet to find a flashlight bright enough to sufficiently outline the bones in our palm, although we’ve had some luck looking through the flesh of our fingers. While that’s pretty cool, it’s quite a bit different from shining a light directly through a human head, which was recently accomplished for the first time at the University of Glasgow. The researchers blasted a powerful pulsed laser against the skull of a volunteer with “fair skin and no hair” and managed to pick up a few photons on the other side, despite an attenuation factor of about 1018. We haven’t read the paper yet, so it’s unclear if the researchers controlled for the possibility of the flesh on the volunteer’s skull acting like a light pipe and conducting the light around the skull rather than through it, but if the laser did indeed penetrate the skull and everything within it, it’s pretty cool. Why would you do this, especially when we already have powerful light sources that can easily penetrate the skull and create exquisitely detailed images of the internal structures? Why the hell wouldn’t you?!
TIG welding aluminum is a tough process to master, and just getting to the point where you’ve got a weld you’re not too embarrassed of would be so much easier if you could just watch someone who knows what they’re doing. That’s a tall order, though, as the work area is literally a tiny pool of molten metal no more than a centimeter in diameter that’s bathed in an ultra-bright arc that’s throwing off cornea-destroying UV light. Luckily, Aaron over at 6061.com on YouTube has a fantastic new video featuring up-close and personal shots of him welding up some aluminum coupons. He captured them with a Helios high-speed welding camera, and the detail is fantastic. You can watch the weld pool forming and see the cleaning action of the AC waveform clearly. The shots make it clear exactly where and when you should dip your filler rod into the pool, the effect of moving the torch smoothly and evenly, and how contaminants can find their way into your welds. The shots make it clear what a dynamic environment the weld pool is, and why it’s so hard to control.
And finally, the title may be provocative, but “The Sensual Wrench” is a must-see video for anyone even remotely interested in tools. It’s from the New Mind channel on YouTube, and it covers the complete history of wrenches. Our biggest surprise was learning how relatively recent an invention the wrench is; it didn’t really make an appearance in anything like its modern form until the 1800s. The video covers everything from the first adjustable wrenches, including the classic “monkey” and “Crescent” patterns, through socket wrenches with all their various elaborations, right through to impact wrenches. Check it out and get you ugga-dugga on.
That first one may necessitate people taking their own photos before accepting the rental.
or simply buy insurance, then you can really “do not care”. Also You got 2 hours of your life back.
“or simply buy insurance, then you can really “do not care”.”
Cool, so the plan here is it’s too hard to prevent companies from cheating us out of money, so we’ll just give it to them?
I always buy insurance. It’s usually 40 a day for the car and 60 for insurance..
If you read the fine print and the car gets stolen/vandalized you can be on the hook for the whole cost of the car so w/e the peace of mind is worth it. Also the company I rent from doesn’t count scratches under 4″ and small dents as damage so hertz maybe does the same, even if they use the scanners idk?
I always do this anyway as otherwise you are down to the attentiveness and attitude of the rental return guy Vs the guy who signed it out and it’s your word against the Kafkaesque system.
Last rental I did through Hertz they took the pictures while I was there and sent them to me. Dunno if that’s standard everywhere, though. Was a little silly because the car in question was literally right off the sales lot.
Hertz? The company who demanded passport from resident of US territories who can travel within US without passport? The company who often reported their car stolen when someone had valid rental paperwork because their staff can’t keep track of their own cars? The same company who had been sued a number of times for accidentally screwing the customers over?
I can see AI scan going “well” for their finance department. $450 for an odd light reflection, a stray piece of thread, or a fly buzzing through causing false scratch or ding positive. Followed by an increase in chargebacks because no one could get in touch with human and report false positive to get the bunk charge removed.
How is Hertz able to stay in business?
Dunno, In 2015 they booked a mini-van for my friend after closing. . . at a location that never had mini-vans. I don’t use them. Turo is pretty cool, its like AirBnB for car rentals.
The Ai damage detector thing doesn’t seem like it would be a problem. Obviously you have to drive through it on the way out, and the way in. It immediately provides a before and after of the damage that could be reviewed by a human. If it erroneously detects damage just clean the spot and scan it again. Not saying they’re doing any of that, but I see no reason AI couldn’t be used responsibly in this context.
If instead they’re just using the phrase “the AI said it therefore its true” well, that’s a scam unrelated to AI.
It’s NOT unrelated to the AI hype, though I concede it is unrelated to AI technology — mostly because I contend that nothing currently marketed as AI actually IS AI.
true true, nor artificial, nor intelligent :D
AI/ML could be used responsibly here and in many other cases but that would require doing things properly rather than just throwing the minimum viable solution at it and getting to lay off a load of workers in this financial year.
Just as chatbots, automated phone systems, and customer service call centres can be used well & to the benefit of the business and the customer but seldom are.
No human available on hertz chat bot?? How is that any different from talking to ANY human answering a phone or in person at a counter working for hertz? On a homeward leg of a weeks long trip for work my flight was to be from Denver to Chicago then Indianapolis (where my car was parked). The olane backed out of the gate engine 1 started normal , number 2 not so much a smoke ring going across the airport is not good, they promptly (yea airline prompt -less than 72 hrs!) repaired the problem and off to Chicago we went, arriving 5 hours late, last flight to Indy left 30 minutes after our original arrival time, airlines plan to get us to Indy apparently by stage coach depart Chicago 10 AM get to Indy 3P.M !! So i have my trusty Hertz gold corporate card except on the hertz counter there is a sign “No Cars” interesting but hey I was Hertz Presidents circle member one perk of which is a car with in 15 minutes any hertz location any time regardless of availability”! It only took about 45 minutes to get a car brought to the terminal as per the program, the counter person refused to even look at the card and pointed at the no cars sign and grunted!! The location supervisor had to call someone who called someone else and then the car arrived, very clean very not 100% road legal 2 dealer plates each with different numbers, no registration, no paperwork at all! it had the Hertz gps installed but it had no base data loaded so after it booted it gave no useable information. I drove it all weekend and dropped it off in Indy when I flew out The following Monday, My employer never got a bill for that weekend, the car is probably somewhere at Indianapolis airport because it probably never got checked out, 2No hertz barcode sticker on the windows!! yea i often wonder how that company survives or gets people to use them .
“it’s unclear if the researchers controlled for the possibility of the flesh on the volunteer’s skull acting like a light pipe and conducting the light around the skull rather than through it”
More importantly, did they control for the volunteer’s flesh turning to charcoal and blocking more light?
I know several people where shining through the ears might result in remarkingly low attenuation…
so far, “i need a meatbag”, always worked