Nate said its app’s users could buy from any e-commerce site with a single click, thanks to AI. In reality, however, Nate relied heavily on hundreds of human contractors in a call center in the Philippines to manually complete those purchases, the DOJ’s Southern District of New York alleges.
Saniger raised millions in venture funding by claiming that Nate was able to transact online “without human intervention,” except for edge cases where the AI failed to complete a transaction. But despite Nate acquiring some AI technology and hiring data scientists, its app’s actual automation rate was effectively 0%, the DOJ claims.
Yeah I agree with that, faked AI helping sell more AI is definitely bad. It’s just ironic this thing, can’t put my finger on it. Like he could have sold a mash up of AI and human involvement and still have had a good selling angle. (I do that at my company, I include the human element as a positive feature, because I think people should be skeptical of AI just let loose on its own.)