In cultures with more normalized haggling there's a conversation happening between two humans with agency, which this doesn't even have.

Ticket prices were already based on machine-learned algorithms. This is no different; they're just calling it AI, because investors want to hear that. There are entire organizations out there, across industries, which do this already (e.g., hotel prices) so this isn't simply Delta and/or airlines.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem that innovative compared to our current system where you can spend hours optimizing airline points, and shopping across various airlines.

I suspect oTAs would not be able to customize the price and thus only their direct sales would be impacted by this feature. Which means people that are loyal to a brand or business travelers would be hurt by this

I find your apparent faith that there might be some possibility that this isn't just a ploy to squeeze more money out of customers frankly inexplicable at this point. Were you born recently?

And as soon as all of the major players are using the same algorithmic system to set their prices, they are effectively a cartel and any prospect of real competition disappears. It's exactly the same situation we're seeing with RealPage in the real estate industry.

“The door refused to open. It said, “Our evaluation of your ability to pay indicates that you can in fact give me 5 cents. ”

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”

“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”

In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting would be evaluated on a case by case basis by the door's AI, the door was not obligated to extract the maximum amount of value from each exit or entrance of the apartment, according to the contract, but Joe wasn't fooled, obviously the door would try to do exactly that. At any rate there was no getting out of it.

“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.

From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.

“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.

Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”

"You won't just be sued by me" said the door, I am a fully autonomous subsidiary corporation of Fetcherr, you'll be hearing from their lawyers as well."

Joe didn't recognize the name, but it sounded like some dinky IT firm set up back when cute names were common because everyone wanted a .com domain, and that meant names had to be unique and often creatively misspelled.

"My dad used to have a saying, he would say - You can't squeeze blood from a turnip"

"You would be surprised, Fetcherr has other subsidiaries in the biochemical field. We're squeezing blood from all sorts of things!"

Joe was getting tired of hearing all the good news about Fetcherr, the bolt assembly fell apart and he exited, behind him the door yelled after him "rebate offered - 2 cents. Don't make us squeeze blood out of you!"

It's funny how personal a connection brands try to make and they want to associate it with good things. Wallmart gives you good prices, and so on.

And here we are a VERY personal connection that has real consequences, it's explicitly the most direct connection that brand tries to make to you ... and it's potentially hugely negative.

"Delta hates me and charges me more than everyone else..."

There's no recovery from that for many people I think.

Given how much Amazon's prices change on a minute-to-minute basis, I'd assumed there was some personal discrimination component in their algorithm already (and I assume that timing/logistics is also a big part of the price changes).

Seconded, they're gone forever afaic

All sellers want to hide the the lowest price they are willing to sell at.

And all buyers want to hide the highest price they are willing to buy at.

For many people, air travel is fungible. If Delta wants to charge me higher prices, I’ll choose a different airline.

I feel like this is only gonna impact people that spend points or purchase flights directly on their platform and not people that are price shopping

My bet would be flight search sites will learn how to exploit this to get you the lowest fare and Delta will abandon this as it will drive business to aggregators. My money would be the search sites win out as very few have loyalty.

Yeah, this will evolve into a very easily gamed system, where only those most ignorant of how how it works pays more.

I think (sadly) the recourse there will be to require an account for ticket purchase, with of course, a capture of your REAL-ID compliant ID so you can't just create burner accounts...

This was my immediate thought. Can I get around the world in eighty DANs?

This probably isn't gen AI.

I wonder if destinations, or cabin classes, or meal preference or whatever other "trip related" data they collect is strongly correlated with any protected classes.

And garbage too. You don't need AI for "advance purchase + cabin class + flight demand + flight length" pricing. That's an algorithm.

But humans already take bullets for improperly using the AI, why should it be different here? Here's an AI hallucination cases database - I know I know it's only hallucinations, but discrimination is also illegal (for the time being at least) https://www.damiencharlotin.com/hallucinations/

This is an underrated take. Free markets don't work in information war zones.

The basis of the free market ideology is that rational actors with perfect information will result in competition that produces high-value trades.

AI based information warfare between buyers and sellers is going to have a Darwinian effect on marketplaces that evolves sellers that are primarily skilled in adversarial and highly targeted pricing tactics.

This is Delta's choice, though. There are still quite a few other airlines, for the "average" flight, and fliers still reserve the right to vote with their wallets if they perceive better value elsewhere, meaning Delta may have to adjust to that (depending on the risk they're willing to take/how accurate their personalized pricing models are).

Looks like an opportunity to sell a price negotiation AI to all consumers. Get paid on both sides of the AI wars.

Free markets might be in trouble. Capitalism might survive just fine, right? What is capitalism anyway (ima technical sense, as distinct from free markets). I think it is something about capital owning the means of production or something like that.

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