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>LangChain[13] enters the chat! Imagine the horror stories of automated online account blocks and Kafkaesque customer support mazes that are all too common, man

>LangChain[13] enters the chat! Imagine the horror stories of automated online account blocks and Kafkaesque customer support mazes that are all too common, manifesting at a societal level. I can imagine this to be a problem. But I can also imagine it to solve a problem. Right now, customer support is often "dehumanised" and Kafkaesque because no single human has the full picture and all the permissions required to resolve a problem. We're often talking to organisations with "brains" split into a thousand fragments. Having humans in the loop doesn't necessarily help if impersonating a cog is all these humans are allowed to do. So if an AI can reintegrate this split organisational brain into something resembling human thinking, it might just be an improvement on average.

throwuwu 3y ago
Yes, these support agents are paid small hourly wages and do the same thing 1000 times a day while dealing with rude or irate customers. Automating their jobs to either eliminate them or change their role to that of bot supervisor will be much better for everyone.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Well you need a handful of supervisors and the rest are laid off. It’s easy to say these jobs being eliminated is good when it’s not your job
  - throwuwu 3y ago
    We shouldn’t keep jobs around just to keep people employed. This kind of insane careerism is probably what’s responsible for the current climate of regulations that makes it difficult for many people to find new work and for companies to open more positions. Changing jobs is a good thing, you would think someone on HN would know that.
    - coffeebeqn 3y ago
      What are these better jobs that the grunts laid off at the call center will land on? They live paycheck to paycheck so anything handwavy is not going to pay for their food and shelter.
      - throwuwu 3y ago
        Jobs are created and destroyed every day. They aren’t some permanent unchanging feature of reality. If someone needs people to do something, they will offer money in exchange for that labor. What would you rather they do? Legislate shitty jobs that can never be gotten rid of in some kind of Kafkaesque make work program?
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
You assume the fragmentation is unintentional- it’s not. Making Organizational intelligence and knowledge management convoluted and compartmented is one of if not the core way that managers keep power over employees. So that’s not a problem that a company wants solved. However it might get solved via this process IF managers start extracting the information from ICs that is then absorbed by a large corporate model - then get rid of the employee I mean if you think about it, we’re just headed toward capitalists creating the Borg
- fauigerzigerk 3y ago
  >Making Organizational intelligence and knowledge management convoluted and compartmented is one of if not the core way that managers keep power over employees. So that’s not a problem that a company wants solved. Of course they want it solved. They just don't want to pay for it (and neither do customers). Larger business customers are not exposed to this madness that consumers and small businesses are having to deal with. Large customers get their own account manager who has all the information and all the permissions to fix things. If necessary, they get their technical issues escalated to real specialists. With these advances in AI, perhaps more of this will become available to everyone. Keeping power over staff (hopefully) won't be a huge problem if "staff" is some AI.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Oh yes I’m sorry I forgot the goal was zero employment
    - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
      Of course that is the goal. Employment is a necessary evil. Ideally, all human activity should be voluntary.
      - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        Agreed, however UNTIL we figure out how to do that, we're stuck with pvp nightmare capitalism To get where you want, you have to actively change the structure and trajectory of society
zoogeny 3y ago
You've brought up an interesting idea in my mind: the infinite patience of AI. No more burned out, jaded customer support people. No more exhaustion answering the same questions over and over. No one feeling motivated today but in a bad mood tomorrow. In some ways, AI will regularize/normalize the CS experience. I actually believe this will be a huge net benefit. There is a pop-psychology idea that I recall where three bosses were given to a group of individuals. One boss was always nice, one boss was always mean, the final boss was sometimes nice and sometimes mean. The interesting result was that people disliked the sometimes nice boss more than the always mean boss. The conclusion was that an always mean boss is consistent and therefore they can be planned around. It is the uncertainty of the sometimes nice, sometimes mean boss that causes stress.
- Mawr 3y ago
  Stress is caused by lack of control, in this case due to the inability to predict, and therefore affect, an outcome. A good example is driving, controlling a vehicle at speed necessitates constantly making accurate predictions. People get characterized as bad drivers largely due to behaving unpredictably.
breckinloggins 3y ago
I agree. 90% of the experiences I've had with modern "support" makes me wish I was talking to GPT-4, instead. The exceptions are either lucky breaks that feel about as good - and random - as finding a $20 bill on the ground and those experiences I've paid a lot of money for because I'm a relatively wealthy software engineer and have chosen to "opt in" to kinder, more competent service with cash. First class travel and premium banking services come to mind. AI has the power to make everyone's experience with support more pleasant, which isn't to say that it won't have a cost.
dumpsterlid 3y ago
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throwuwu 3y ago

Yes, these support agents are paid small hourly wages and do the same thing 1000 times a day while dealing with rude or irate customers. Automating their jobs to either eliminate them or change their role to that of bot supervisor will be much better for everyone.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
Well you need a handful of supervisors and the rest are laid off. It’s easy to say these jobs being eliminated is good when it’s not your job
- throwuwu 3y ago
  We shouldn’t keep jobs around just to keep people employed. This kind of insane careerism is probably what’s responsible for the current climate of regulations that makes it difficult for many people to find new work and for companies to open more positions. Changing jobs is a good thing, you would think someone on HN would know that.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    What are these better jobs that the grunts laid off at the call center will land on? They live paycheck to paycheck so anything handwavy is not going to pay for their food and shelter.
    - throwuwu 3y ago
      Jobs are created and destroyed every day. They aren’t some permanent unchanging feature of reality. If someone needs people to do something, they will offer money in exchange for that labor. What would you rather they do? Legislate shitty jobs that can never be gotten rid of in some kind of Kafkaesque make work program?

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

You assume the fragmentation is unintentional- it’s not. Making Organizational intelligence and knowledge management convoluted and compartmented is one of if not the core way that managers keep power over employees. So that’s not a problem that a company wants solved. However it might get solved via this process IF managers start extracting the information from ICs that is then absorbed by a large corporate model - then get rid of the employee I mean if you think about it, we’re just headed toward capitalists creating the Borg

fauigerzigerk 3y ago
>Making Organizational intelligence and knowledge management convoluted and compartmented is one of if not the core way that managers keep power over employees. So that’s not a problem that a company wants solved. Of course they want it solved. They just don't want to pay for it (and neither do customers). Larger business customers are not exposed to this madness that consumers and small businesses are having to deal with. Large customers get their own account manager who has all the information and all the permissions to fix things. If necessary, they get their technical issues escalated to real specialists. With these advances in AI, perhaps more of this will become available to everyone. Keeping power over staff (hopefully) won't be a huge problem if "staff" is some AI.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Oh yes I’m sorry I forgot the goal was zero employment
  - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
    Of course that is the goal. Employment is a necessary evil. Ideally, all human activity should be voluntary.
    - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
      Agreed, however UNTIL we figure out how to do that, we're stuck with pvp nightmare capitalism To get where you want, you have to actively change the structure and trajectory of society

zoogeny 3y ago

You've brought up an interesting idea in my mind: the infinite patience of AI. No more burned out, jaded customer support people. No more exhaustion answering the same questions over and over. No one feeling motivated today but in a bad mood tomorrow. In some ways, AI will regularize/normalize the CS experience. I actually believe this will be a huge net benefit. There is a pop-psychology idea that I recall where three bosses were given to a group of individuals. One boss was always nice, one boss was always mean, the final boss was sometimes nice and sometimes mean. The interesting result was that people disliked the sometimes nice boss more than the always mean boss. The conclusion was that an always mean boss is consistent and therefore they can be planned around. It is the uncertainty of the sometimes nice, sometimes mean boss that causes stress.

Mawr 3y ago
Stress is caused by lack of control, in this case due to the inability to predict, and therefore affect, an outcome. A good example is driving, controlling a vehicle at speed necessitates constantly making accurate predictions. People get characterized as bad drivers largely due to behaving unpredictably.

breckinloggins 3y ago

I agree. 90% of the experiences I've had with modern "support" makes me wish I was talking to GPT-4, instead. The exceptions are either lucky breaks that feel about as good - and random - as finding a $20 bill on the ground and those experiences I've paid a lot of money for because I'm a relatively wealthy software engineer and have chosen to "opt in" to kinder, more competent service with cash. First class travel and premium banking services come to mind. AI has the power to make everyone's experience with support more pleasant, which isn't to say that it won't have a cost.

dumpsterlid 3y ago

[dead]