Economic nirvana within reach. Draft Kings is now using AI to target problem gamblers and deepen their compulsions. Millions to be made !!

Photo above – Hey, there’s a 2-drink minimum here, Calamity Jane! (Deadwood TV series). Drink up, or we’ll use AI to inundate your internet feed with nonstop whiskey ads . . .

Has there ever been a better time to be alive? The surest path to fortune has been discovered by Draft Kings, a mobile betting site. Company execs ran literally thousands of simulations on problem gamblers – the ones most likely to keep betting until all their money is gone. And AI was able to identify lots of these chumps in advance, and target them with special promos to gamble earlier and more often. It’s all true – read the link below.

Longtime readers of this column will recall that this writer is opposed to addictive technology and substances of all kinds, so I’m of course being satiric here today. Draft Kings’ use of AI to deepen the financial crises of weak-willed people SEEMS like it should be illegal. But apparently it’s not.

Before someone starts chanting “this is a free country”, let’s turn our attention to how AI can be used to intensify some of our other destructive impulses. Big tobacco shouldn’t be sitting on their hands. They could probably run analyses of ‘tweens gaming interests and other behaviors, and then offer the most vulnerable and lowest IQ Marlboro promos on the day they turn 21. Liquor is another thing that virtually sells itself, but what if the makers of Basil Hayden (the bourbon enjoying endless product placements in the “Deadwood” TV series) - suppose Basil could get access to every own family history of alcoholism, and leverage THAT data to enrich itself?

All of this is apparently perfectly legal. And President Trump is urging that congress punt on the idea of regulating AI’s most nefarious uses. If we don't, America's economic good times could be at risk.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



How DraftKings Uses AI to Target the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose | The Seattle Times