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I wonder sometimes whether there's another accelerating factor at work; specifically, as this kind of technological advance accelerates, that the prospect of in

I wonder sometimes whether there's another accelerating factor at work; specifically, as this kind of technological advance accelerates, that the prospect of interfacing with another human to get a task done becomes less and less pleasant for people. I've already noticed that quite a number of people of my acquaintance, including occasionally myself, would rather spend 5 minutes poking at radio buttons on my phone to order food vs 45 seconds talking to a human. There may be a premium associated with an absence of human interaction in a task. I'm sure many people would pay more for a robotic cleaner per unit of effectiveness than they would for a human cleaner, just from the perspective of privacy.

ethbro 10y ago
I would counter that it's not privacy / lack of human interaction we're increasingly desiring, but regularity. Or, being able to expect a thing happening in a given situation.
rpcorb 10y ago
Can confirm. I've noticed this social trend as well. However, interestingly, there also seems to be critical threshold (different for every task) beyond which the opposite urge takes hold. Take, for instance, customer/technical support hotlines. The feeling of, "Please just let me talk to a human..." In that case there's a premium on the presence of human interaction. It almost seems like an "uncanny valley" of technological problem solving. In other words, machines are useful but usually brittle. Humans have a flexibility and creativity which won't be easy to replicate.
- glangdale 10y ago
  Yes indeed. Unfortunately one often finds that you are talking to a human who is sitting on the same side of the "uncanny valley of technological problem solving as you". That is, some pleasant and would-be-helpful call center worker who is now just banging their head on the same problem you were. I've had more than a few calls where you can actually hear them getting stuck on the same web page, experiencing the same bug/timeout/whatever that you were getting on the 'public' site. Flexibility and creativity aren't much use when we're all just wrestling with the same brittle machine on the same terms...

ethbro 10y ago

I would counter that it's not privacy / lack of human interaction we're increasingly desiring, but regularity. Or, being able to expect a thing happening in a given situation.

rpcorb 10y ago

Can confirm. I've noticed this social trend as well. However, interestingly, there also seems to be critical threshold (different for every task) beyond which the opposite urge takes hold. Take, for instance, customer/technical support hotlines. The feeling of, "Please just let me talk to a human..." In that case there's a premium on the presence of human interaction. It almost seems like an "uncanny valley" of technological problem solving. In other words, machines are useful but usually brittle. Humans have a flexibility and creativity which won't be easy to replicate.

glangdale 10y ago
Yes indeed. Unfortunately one often finds that you are talking to a human who is sitting on the same side of the "uncanny valley of technological problem solving as you". That is, some pleasant and would-be-helpful call center worker who is now just banging their head on the same problem you were. I've had more than a few calls where you can actually hear them getting stuck on the same web page, experiencing the same bug/timeout/whatever that you were getting on the 'public' site. Flexibility and creativity aren't much use when we're all just wrestling with the same brittle machine on the same terms...