5 ms·

...the same could be said of call center and phone support jobs, which will affect about a zillion times more people than professional voice actors.

nemo44x 4y ago
Hasn’t this already happened mainly? It’s rare I talk to a human. It’s even more rare I call a help desk instead of using sone other means. It’s sort of the most obvious cost center managers have been actively automating. I still think speaking to a human will be a premium thing for valued customers.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  We'll have to find tricks to bypass the robot just like we have to find tricks to bypass call center workers today.
vagab0nd 4y ago
Many of us suffer from this. "AI will take many jobs, and rightly so. But surely not my job".
Broken_Hippo 4y ago
Which isn't all bad. Call center jobs are pretty brutal and often have draconian absence policies. Some of them (maybe most?) at least require a pre-employment drug test. Some require random drug tests while employed - and some of those will be hair follicle tests - and honestly, I can't understand how smoking weed occasionally will make you bad at taking calls. Some - if not most - will absolutely expect you to put up with an array of abuse from customers and be nice when it happens. Americans don't require this from police. And don't get me started on the conditions for telephone sales. I worked in a call center for deliquent phone bills, and heard stories about how much better it was there. I guess phone sales is really soul-crushing. Truly, the worst part about this is simply that a lot of the folks affected have no realistic safety net.
- danielrpa 4y ago
  Everything you are saying matches what I've heard too. But despite these jobs being bad, I assume people who take them have no other choice, otherwise why would they do it? If AI takes over call centers, what would these people do?
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    Riot until UBI or fentanyl overdoses are considered official government policy to solve the problem.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      Good news canada is working on expanding MAID for this right now!
- 999900000999 4y ago
  This depends on what your comparing it to. I worked at a call center once, and an older woman who I think was from Eastern Europe called me weak for complaining. I'll make an educated guess her life wasn't as pampered as the typical American's. Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world we'd all work fully remote Python or JavaScript jobs. With 200k+ cash comp and stock options on top of that. But back in reality not everyone can have a perfect job.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    I'd rather work Elixir or Clojure, but Python is certainly close enough. Common Lisp would be neat, too.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > in a perfect world we'd all work fully remote Python or JavaScript jobs. That would be the opposite of a perfect world for me. I would be miserable if I had to do more than a small amount of work on Python or JS jobs. Just sayin'
insane_dreamer 4y ago
and social media content moderators (another soul-crushing job), and I don't mean HN, but thinking of FB, Twitter, etc.

nemo44x 4y ago

Hasn’t this already happened mainly? It’s rare I talk to a human. It’s even more rare I call a help desk instead of using sone other means. It’s sort of the most obvious cost center managers have been actively automating. I still think speaking to a human will be a premium thing for valued customers.

JohnFen 4y ago
We'll have to find tricks to bypass the robot just like we have to find tricks to bypass call center workers today.

vagab0nd 4y ago

Many of us suffer from this. "AI will take many jobs, and rightly so. But surely not my job".

Broken_Hippo 4y ago

Which isn't all bad. Call center jobs are pretty brutal and often have draconian absence policies. Some of them (maybe most?) at least require a pre-employment drug test. Some require random drug tests while employed - and some of those will be hair follicle tests - and honestly, I can't understand how smoking weed occasionally will make you bad at taking calls. Some - if not most - will absolutely expect you to put up with an array of abuse from customers and be nice when it happens. Americans don't require this from police. And don't get me started on the conditions for telephone sales. I worked in a call center for deliquent phone bills, and heard stories about how much better it was there. I guess phone sales is really soul-crushing. Truly, the worst part about this is simply that a lot of the folks affected have no realistic safety net.

danielrpa 4y ago
Everything you are saying matches what I've heard too. But despite these jobs being bad, I assume people who take them have no other choice, otherwise why would they do it? If AI takes over call centers, what would these people do?
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  Riot until UBI or fentanyl overdoses are considered official government policy to solve the problem.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Good news canada is working on expanding MAID for this right now!
999900000999 4y ago
This depends on what your comparing it to. I worked at a call center once, and an older woman who I think was from Eastern Europe called me weak for complaining. I'll make an educated guess her life wasn't as pampered as the typical American's. Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world we'd all work fully remote Python or JavaScript jobs. With 200k+ cash comp and stock options on top of that. But back in reality not everyone can have a perfect job.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  I'd rather work Elixir or Clojure, but Python is certainly close enough. Common Lisp would be neat, too.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > in a perfect world we'd all work fully remote Python or JavaScript jobs. That would be the opposite of a perfect world for me. I would be miserable if I had to do more than a small amount of work on Python or JS jobs. Just sayin'

insane_dreamer 4y ago

and social media content moderators (another soul-crushing job), and I don't mean HN, but thinking of FB, Twitter, etc.