6 ms·

I care a lot more about outcomes than whether the person I'm talking to is "real" or not. If my bill gets corrected by an AI but not a person? I'll take the AI.

by patmcc 4y ago

I care a lot more about outcomes than whether the person I'm talking to is "real" or not. If my bill gets corrected by an AI but not a person? I'll take the AI. Think of the classic "is 0.002 cents the same as 0.002 dollars?" call - https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ - I just tested, and chatGPT seems to understand the difference - so maybe this would be a case where the AI is better. edit: to be clear I'm fine with labeling if that's desired, it's the "I want to talk to a real person" that I think is silly (and oddly similar to the "I want to talk to an American" that people also say).

thomastjeffery 4y ago
If outcome is your goal, then why continue the overhead of inter-human dialogue?
standardUser 4y ago
And most people don't care how many carbs are in a candy bar but we mandate labelling because it creates transparency and accountability and empowers the public. We should be doing the same with technology, only far more aggressively and comprehensively.
jebr224 4y ago
You logic is sound ... maybe too sound. Have AI already taken over HK comments.
olyjohn 4y ago
I'd rather they use the bot to correct the bill in the first place before they even send it to me.
HWR_14 4y ago
My guess is the AI will be less likely to correct your bill than a person.
JohnFen 4y ago
> I'm fine with labeling if that's desired, it's the "I want to talk to a real person" that I think is silly So anything that you don't value is silly?
- patmcc 4y ago
  If someone said "I want to talk to an American" or "a woman" or "a $race person" yah I'd consider that (at my absolute most charitable) "silly" in that context. I think there's a value/don't value axis but also a serious/silly axis. For food labelling as an example: Contains gluten. Don't value personally, serious. Contains GMO ingredients. Don't value personally, silly. edit: more specific to the support desk example - we could label each tier by "has the authority to do $X", I think that would be far more useful.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > If someone said "I want to talk to an American" or "a woman" or "a $race person" Well, sure. Or prejudiced, anyway, because none of those things affect how they perform their jobs. But whether or not the entity on the phone is a human absolutely affects how they perform their job. I would deal with a machine very differently than a human as a result. > we could label each tier by "has the authority to do $X", I think that would be far more useful. That would be useful as well, but the difference between human and machine isn't really about what authorities they have.
    - patmcc 4y ago
      >But whether or not the entity on the phone is a human absolutely affects how they perform their job Except now you're back to where I was, talking about outcomes. I had a very minor issue with my ISP today - they sent me an email to return some equipment (that I never had). I used the chat widget on their site to contact them. I got (presumably) a real person and it went perfectly well; nice and pleasant, sorted out quickly. If instead it was an AI, what's the difference? If I didn't get to the same result, or it took 10x as long, then sure I'd be ticked off. But for the same outcome? Why waste a real person's time? I don't think we're at the point where an AI can reliably perform tier-1 support at the same level as a human, but I don't think that's too far off either. When we get there, I'll happily deal with the AI. If it doesn't work, then I expect an escalation path - the same way I do with the human support agent.
mikrotikker 4y ago
If they remove the human element then it means all the rules become hard and fast because we lose the ability to reason with and get exemptions in special cases right? There are many dystopian movies that showcase this and the resulting oppression.

by patmcc 4y ago

thomastjeffery 4y ago

If outcome is your goal, then why continue the overhead of inter-human dialogue?

standardUser 4y ago

And most people don't care how many carbs are in a candy bar but we mandate labelling because it creates transparency and accountability and empowers the public. We should be doing the same with technology, only far more aggressively and comprehensively.

jebr224 4y ago

You logic is sound ... maybe too sound. Have AI already taken over HK comments.

olyjohn 4y ago

I'd rather they use the bot to correct the bill in the first place before they even send it to me.

HWR_14 4y ago

My guess is the AI will be less likely to correct your bill than a person.

JohnFen 4y ago

> I'm fine with labeling if that's desired, it's the "I want to talk to a real person" that I think is silly So anything that you don't value is silly?

patmcc 4y ago
If someone said "I want to talk to an American" or "a woman" or "a $race person" yah I'd consider that (at my absolute most charitable) "silly" in that context. I think there's a value/don't value axis but also a serious/silly axis. For food labelling as an example: Contains gluten. Don't value personally, serious. Contains GMO ingredients. Don't value personally, silly. edit: more specific to the support desk example - we could label each tier by "has the authority to do $X", I think that would be far more useful.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > If someone said "I want to talk to an American" or "a woman" or "a $race person" Well, sure. Or prejudiced, anyway, because none of those things affect how they perform their jobs. But whether or not the entity on the phone is a human absolutely affects how they perform their job. I would deal with a machine very differently than a human as a result. > we could label each tier by "has the authority to do $X", I think that would be far more useful. That would be useful as well, but the difference between human and machine isn't really about what authorities they have.
  - patmcc 4y ago
    >But whether or not the entity on the phone is a human absolutely affects how they perform their job Except now you're back to where I was, talking about outcomes. I had a very minor issue with my ISP today - they sent me an email to return some equipment (that I never had). I used the chat widget on their site to contact them. I got (presumably) a real person and it went perfectly well; nice and pleasant, sorted out quickly. If instead it was an AI, what's the difference? If I didn't get to the same result, or it took 10x as long, then sure I'd be ticked off. But for the same outcome? Why waste a real person's time? I don't think we're at the point where an AI can reliably perform tier-1 support at the same level as a human, but I don't think that's too far off either. When we get there, I'll happily deal with the AI. If it doesn't work, then I expect an escalation path - the same way I do with the human support agent.

mikrotikker 4y ago

If they remove the human element then it means all the rules become hard and fast because we lose the ability to reason with and get exemptions in special cases right? There are many dystopian movies that showcase this and the resulting oppression.