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I don't want to talk to machines. It's why we still use keyboards IMO. Talking to machines makes me feel stupid and embarrassed when the wife asks what I said.

I don't want to talk to machines. It's why we still use keyboards IMO. Talking to machines makes me feel stupid and embarrassed when the wife asks what I said. I only want to talk to other humans or the cat. When I call an automated line that wants me to talk them I find it demeaning so press random buttons until it let's me type a number. Is it just me?

throwawayboise 5y ago
Yep. I hate talking to machines. I disabled all the voice recognition on my phone. Will never own a device such as Alexa.
throaway46546 5y ago
I absolutely despise talking to automated phone trees too. Luckily most of them seem to support DTMF fallback (I assume for accessibility reasons).
AlotOfReading 5y ago
I'm increasingly seeing automated phone systems simply hang up if they don't understand whatever buttons you press, or you have the gall to say "representative" instead of "customer service". I guess it must improve metrics somehow, but it's infuriating to crawl through the tree multiple times until you find the right sequence of precise inputs to get to a representative who can transfer you to the place you actually wanted to go, an hour later.
- pempem 5y ago
  Recently I was at a budget/hertz (my first mistake) with a reservation and found they had no cars for my reservation and no timeline by which they would. I was told by the person manning the desk they could not help me, only the representative on the phone could and no, they did not have a direct line. After 30min on hold person on the phone said they could not tell me what hertz/budget would have a car for my reservation though they were the reservation desk. They transferred me to customer service where I waited for 90 min to no avail. Even worse, I was in a total loop at booking.com. Enter reservation number pls: easy. Enter pin: there isn't one. Immediate disconnect. No representative, no series of numbers, no alternate phone number available.
- moepstar 5y ago
  What i found to be the fastest way to a human being is to just blow into the headset instead of even trying to navigate their menu... Usually, the robot will give you something like "i didn't understand you, can you please repeat that?" and blow 2 or 3 more times into the mic... Afterwards, i'm usually transferred pretty quickly to a human being - presumably this is due to some accessibility requirements....
betwixthewires 5y ago
It was the same thing with Bluetooth headsets a decade and a half ago. People were walking around randomly talking to themselves. Nowadays it's just normal. I personally don't want to talk to machines all that much either, but in for your reason. It's because the utility of such an interface sucks. The things can't actually do much other than bring something up on a screen. And they make mistakes half the time.
- deleted 5y ago
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thepasswordis 5y ago
I've found that with these automated phone things, if you spam enough words with broad enough targets at them, and speak in somewhat unintelligibly, it will just error and connect you with a human.
stadium 5y ago
When voice works, it's nice. For example I do enjoy asking my fire tv to play music or find a show. It's not perfect but it's easier than typing one character at a time on the TV remote, or doom scrolling.
toast0 5y ago
I might not mind talking to computers if they could understand me and there was an easy to use list of words to use. I can't easily process the recordings telling me what to say for X; not sure why, but it's easier to push a number for a topic from a list; part of it is you can expect to interrupt the prompt by pushing buttons, but I don't expect to talk over a prompt (and if I do, I dunno if it will hear me anyway)
midasuni 5y ago
About the only voice I use is “call X” when driving, which usually works, and “start a X minute countdown”

throwawayboise 5y ago

Yep. I hate talking to machines. I disabled all the voice recognition on my phone. Will never own a device such as Alexa.

throaway46546 5y ago

I absolutely despise talking to automated phone trees too. Luckily most of them seem to support DTMF fallback (I assume for accessibility reasons).

AlotOfReading 5y ago

I'm increasingly seeing automated phone systems simply hang up if they don't understand whatever buttons you press, or you have the gall to say "representative" instead of "customer service". I guess it must improve metrics somehow, but it's infuriating to crawl through the tree multiple times until you find the right sequence of precise inputs to get to a representative who can transfer you to the place you actually wanted to go, an hour later.

pempem 5y ago
Recently I was at a budget/hertz (my first mistake) with a reservation and found they had no cars for my reservation and no timeline by which they would. I was told by the person manning the desk they could not help me, only the representative on the phone could and no, they did not have a direct line. After 30min on hold person on the phone said they could not tell me what hertz/budget would have a car for my reservation though they were the reservation desk. They transferred me to customer service where I waited for 90 min to no avail. Even worse, I was in a total loop at booking.com. Enter reservation number pls: easy. Enter pin: there isn't one. Immediate disconnect. No representative, no series of numbers, no alternate phone number available.
moepstar 5y ago
What i found to be the fastest way to a human being is to just blow into the headset instead of even trying to navigate their menu... Usually, the robot will give you something like "i didn't understand you, can you please repeat that?" and blow 2 or 3 more times into the mic... Afterwards, i'm usually transferred pretty quickly to a human being - presumably this is due to some accessibility requirements....

betwixthewires 5y ago

It was the same thing with Bluetooth headsets a decade and a half ago. People were walking around randomly talking to themselves. Nowadays it's just normal. I personally don't want to talk to machines all that much either, but in for your reason. It's because the utility of such an interface sucks. The things can't actually do much other than bring something up on a screen. And they make mistakes half the time.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

thepasswordis 5y ago

I've found that with these automated phone things, if you spam enough words with broad enough targets at them, and speak in somewhat unintelligibly, it will just error and connect you with a human.

stadium 5y ago

When voice works, it's nice. For example I do enjoy asking my fire tv to play music or find a show. It's not perfect but it's easier than typing one character at a time on the TV remote, or doom scrolling.

toast0 5y ago

I might not mind talking to computers if they could understand me and there was an easy to use list of words to use. I can't easily process the recordings telling me what to say for X; not sure why, but it's easier to push a number for a topic from a list; part of it is you can expect to interrupt the prompt by pushing buttons, but I don't expect to talk over a prompt (and if I do, I dunno if it will hear me anyway)

midasuni 5y ago

About the only voice I use is “call X” when driving, which usually works, and “start a X minute countdown”