Don Blackmore
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2018–2020
1:14 · 2.5M views · Mar 31, 2013
A clip from Little Britain in which a bureaucrat answers every request with 'computer says no'.
Used as a joke whenever automated systems deny people without explanation or recourse.
3 comments from Hacker News
1) You write it once and put it in your privacy policy 2) Enquiries would be from people who are a) concerned that the decision you made was unfair and would like it reviewed by a human. b) would like an explanation of the decision. Personally I welcome this. Sitting in a bank and being refused a mortgage because 'computer says no'[0] with no recourse or reason is tough. If you are profiling for marketing reasons I wonder what kind of enquiries you are expecting? [0]: this video
This is just redlining, but with "Computer Says NO"[1], which allows the user to pass the responsibility buck onto the mysterious "algorithms". The best part is that they don't even have to run the algorithm , they can just claim they did so[2] to justify their biases. [1] this video [2] [LINK]
Retail Equation sounds like they came straight out of Little Britain's "Computer Says No" sketch. this video