4 ms·

A big part of the problem isn’t actually chat bots even though it may well seem to be. It’s that you can’t pop some system atop a teetering ziggurat of shitty

A big part of the problem isn’t actually chat bots even though it may well seem to be. It’s that you can’t pop some system atop a teetering ziggurat of shitty data from mutually incompatible systems and think the fundamental problems are going to just disappear. Example: I am currently executor of my dad’s estate and trying to get various policies and pensions and whatnot transferred into my mother’s name. One company seemed especially clueless when I emailed them so I called. Part of the voice prompt on the phone system was something like “if the statement we send you comes from city A, press 1, if it comes from city B press 2”. Well that’s a weird red flag right there also a teeny problem: my statement comes from city C. I eventually speak to a human but try as they might they can’t find anything about my dad. Eventually I write to the company at city C and they’re super helpful. Basically this company is formed from the corpses of various pension funds which just get welded together. There is no underlying integration at all between the systems. They are separate companies in all but name. You could have an agi chatbot and its still going to be lobotomised by this level of disfunction. In my experience the data landscape at many enterprises is like this.

nfriedly 3y ago
You have my condolences. My brother and I ended up hiring a lawyer to handle our dad's estate, and I'd recommend it to anyone. She did things like send the hospital a letter that said in essence "give me a single bill with a total for all services provided at your hospital. If it's not on this bill I'm not going to pay it." (Although legal fees for estates are capped here in Ohio, not sure if that's true where you are.)
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  > She did things like send the hospital a letter that said in essence "give me a single bill with a total for all services provided at your hospital. If it's not on this bill I'm not going to pay it." That is a great thing to say, but does it actually hold any weight? Or is it like the construction trucks that have signs saying they are not responsible for damage from items blown off them?
  - isykt 3y ago
    The "weight" in the situation is good ol' fashioned incentive. The patient in question is dead, and the estate attorney is wrapping up business. After a certain date, there won't be an entity to collect from. Relatives of the deceased are not liable for medical debts (that doesn't mean the medical provider won't try to collect it from relatives, though). So the medical provider faces two distinct choices: A.) Get their act together and get paid a guaranteed sum from an estate that has been established by a professional entity B.) Hem and haw, miss the boat, and try to collect from an estate that's run dry because the money has been dispersed to relatives and/or try to goad relatives into paying. Sometimes, those relatives don't exist.
  - sidewndr46 3y ago
    The billing department can call your bluff, then get in line in probate court to get paid. Possibly years down the road depending on how long it takes. Keep in mind hospital bills are just a fantasy, I've received bills >$50,000 US for less than 1 hour in the hospital.
    - freilanzer 3y ago
      > Keep in mind hospital bills are just a fantasy, I've received bills >$50,000 US for less than 1 hour in the hospital. Then it makes even more sense to do that.
  - chucksta 3y ago
    Not really, same idea. Hospitals want to recover as much as they can with as little headache. Coming from a lawyer vs trying to negotiate yourself just means "I can actually make this difficult for you, play ball"
    - ballenf 3y ago
      In the case of a death or bankruptcy, yes it does work. There is a hard cutoff date and if they miss it the debt is uncollectible. It does not work for the living.
notpachet 3y ago
> teetering ziggurat My next internal project codename
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Are you working with web frameworks?
  - notpachet 3y ago
    s/with/against!
fragmede 3y ago
Where AGI is still the realm of science fiction, I think an AGI could recognize that <CompanyName, City> is a unique entity, and that CompanyName isn't the same from city to city.
- drunkpotato 3y ago
  I think humans already struggle with this, without sufficient background knowledge and context. Reality is messy.
- seanhunter 3y ago
  That’s not the problem here unfortunately. The problem here is that there is no interconnection of any kind between any system that knows about city A and B and the systems which know about city C. So there’s literally no way to help a customer who has a problem described in those systems. An AGI chatbot couldn’t be any more helpful than the human was because it has no access to anything about city C. Now could that be fixed? From a tech perspective of course it could. However there’s probably a deep organizational reason this hasn’t happened. In this case, it’s because city C is a bunch of customers they bought during the windup of a bankrupt life insurance company and are running them down over time. So there probably isn’t enough profit in the portfolio they are running down to justify the IT investment. As I say, these are the kind of things a chatbot (however smart) isn’t going to be able to fix.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > there is no interconnection of any kind between any system that knows about city A and B and the systems which know about city C The AGI, via DuplexAI, could just call up the office in city C and ask. It's been calling restaurants to get their hours for years. Having it call a listed phone number to ask a person about an account doesn't seem far fetched at all to me.
    - seanhunter 3y ago
      The person at the original call center literally had no idea of the existence of the operation of the company at city C and it didn't have any sort of online presence. The online presence only knew about the operations at city A and B. Remember that C was the zombie part of a defunct company they bought so even the original contact details which might once have existed wouldn't work or be listed any more. The call center person I originally spoke to literally tried to google it while I was on the phone and got an incorrect contact number which I tried so I know it didn't work. The only correct contact details I could find were on the paper statement which was how I knew to write them an old fashioned letter (which was the thing which eventually seems to have worked). Noone at city A or B had this statement - I had it. In any event we're in danger of fixating on my original example and missing the broader point which is that any system or intelligence, human or otherwise, is limited by the data it is able to access. If a company has a very messy and/or disfunctional data landscape[1] then it is difficult bordering on impossible to paper over the cracks with systems or operational processes. [1] which I gave an intentionally extreme example of, but lots of companies are formed from multiple acquisitions or have systems built by rival IT groups in different parts of the org or by outside vendors or contractors etc so a milder form of this is very common in my experience.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
> It’s that you can’t pop some system atop a teetering ziggurat of shitty data from mutually incompatible systems and think the fundamental problems are going to just disappear. I mean, works for CSS.
sandworm101 3y ago
>> and think the fundamental problems are going to just disappear. Au contraire. If you implement things poorly enough then all those people on the phone asking for tech support really do just go away. They learn to solve their own problems. Make your problem-solving/help-line interface sufficiently horrible that it develops a reputation (Google) and they won't even make an attempt to contact you.
- RamenJunkie_ 3y ago
  Sometimes I think this is the point. Like lately out cell service has been horrible at the house and my wife keeps asking me to call them but why? It's just going to be screaming into the void of some automated system and nothing will be done.
  - elcritch 3y ago
    Call to cancel your account, mention moving to another service, etc. Often times companies will transfer you to more empowered "retention specialists".
    - asimpleusecase 3y ago
      Recently, I noticed my broadband fees were double what the company would charge a new customer at the same address. I reached out to the telecom and stated with the “I’d like to close my service” track. That got me a human but when it was clear that my issue was price they had a script for that. It was full of delays and circular “offers”. After a hour it finally end with their final offer - split the difference between what I am paying and the new customer price. What is amazing to me is that another competitor offers the same new customer price they do and it all uses the same infrastructure. It is literally a terminal entry switching process. Apparently they have calculated they can keep more a actually lose very few customers.
ilaksh 3y ago
But GPT-4 100% could have looked that up and given you that information. It's clearly not a unique situation.
mindslight 3y ago
I wish I could pass on some wisdom or tips for how to deal with estate crap better, but I don't know that there is. It's just a fucking slog. The best cases are where you say the magic word, it gets you to a dedicated department staffed by real humans who actually know what they're talking about, sends you the right paperwork, and that paperwork finishes out what you need from them. The bad cases are basically an exercise in reverse engineering their org chart, to figure out what department is actually responsible for a given corner case, and how their policies and the legal regulations actually fit together. I remember being on the phone with Vanguard to sort something out, I think I got pinballed between 4-5 different ostensibly-human reps in changing departments. Each one profusely apologizing that they had to transfer me again, and I'm just laughing it off because it's the only way to survive. Get a durable power of attorney for your mother sooner rather than later. It won't solve everything, but can make some inquiries easier to just do on your own rather than needing a group project. Also health care proxy and a new will if those are necessary. IME old people can be very open to such changes soon after a death, but then become much more hesitant and procrastinatey months later. I think it's the difference between ascribing the reason to their partner's death, or to their own looming death. Strike while the iron is hot.

nfriedly 3y ago

You have my condolences. My brother and I ended up hiring a lawyer to handle our dad's estate, and I'd recommend it to anyone. She did things like send the hospital a letter that said in essence "give me a single bill with a total for all services provided at your hospital. If it's not on this bill I'm not going to pay it." (Although legal fees for estates are capped here in Ohio, not sure if that's true where you are.)

LeafItAlone 3y ago
> She did things like send the hospital a letter that said in essence "give me a single bill with a total for all services provided at your hospital. If it's not on this bill I'm not going to pay it." That is a great thing to say, but does it actually hold any weight? Or is it like the construction trucks that have signs saying they are not responsible for damage from items blown off them?
- isykt 3y ago
  The "weight" in the situation is good ol' fashioned incentive. The patient in question is dead, and the estate attorney is wrapping up business. After a certain date, there won't be an entity to collect from. Relatives of the deceased are not liable for medical debts (that doesn't mean the medical provider won't try to collect it from relatives, though). So the medical provider faces two distinct choices: A.) Get their act together and get paid a guaranteed sum from an estate that has been established by a professional entity B.) Hem and haw, miss the boat, and try to collect from an estate that's run dry because the money has been dispersed to relatives and/or try to goad relatives into paying. Sometimes, those relatives don't exist.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  The billing department can call your bluff, then get in line in probate court to get paid. Possibly years down the road depending on how long it takes. Keep in mind hospital bills are just a fantasy, I've received bills >$50,000 US for less than 1 hour in the hospital.
  - freilanzer 3y ago
    > Keep in mind hospital bills are just a fantasy, I've received bills >$50,000 US for less than 1 hour in the hospital. Then it makes even more sense to do that.
- chucksta 3y ago
  Not really, same idea. Hospitals want to recover as much as they can with as little headache. Coming from a lawyer vs trying to negotiate yourself just means "I can actually make this difficult for you, play ball"
  - ballenf 3y ago
    In the case of a death or bankruptcy, yes it does work. There is a hard cutoff date and if they miss it the debt is uncollectible. It does not work for the living.

notpachet 3y ago

> teetering ziggurat My next internal project codename

marcosdumay 3y ago
Are you working with web frameworks?
- notpachet 3y ago
  s/with/against!

fragmede 3y ago

Where AGI is still the realm of science fiction, I think an AGI could recognize that <CompanyName, City> is a unique entity, and that CompanyName isn't the same from city to city.

drunkpotato 3y ago
I think humans already struggle with this, without sufficient background knowledge and context. Reality is messy.
seanhunter 3y ago
That’s not the problem here unfortunately. The problem here is that there is no interconnection of any kind between any system that knows about city A and B and the systems which know about city C. So there’s literally no way to help a customer who has a problem described in those systems. An AGI chatbot couldn’t be any more helpful than the human was because it has no access to anything about city C. Now could that be fixed? From a tech perspective of course it could. However there’s probably a deep organizational reason this hasn’t happened. In this case, it’s because city C is a bunch of customers they bought during the windup of a bankrupt life insurance company and are running them down over time. So there probably isn’t enough profit in the portfolio they are running down to justify the IT investment. As I say, these are the kind of things a chatbot (however smart) isn’t going to be able to fix.
- fragmede 3y ago
  > there is no interconnection of any kind between any system that knows about city A and B and the systems which know about city C The AGI, via DuplexAI, could just call up the office in city C and ask. It's been calling restaurants to get their hours for years. Having it call a listed phone number to ask a person about an account doesn't seem far fetched at all to me.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    The person at the original call center literally had no idea of the existence of the operation of the company at city C and it didn't have any sort of online presence. The online presence only knew about the operations at city A and B. Remember that C was the zombie part of a defunct company they bought so even the original contact details which might once have existed wouldn't work or be listed any more. The call center person I originally spoke to literally tried to google it while I was on the phone and got an incorrect contact number which I tried so I know it didn't work. The only correct contact details I could find were on the paper statement which was how I knew to write them an old fashioned letter (which was the thing which eventually seems to have worked). Noone at city A or B had this statement - I had it. In any event we're in danger of fixating on my original example and missing the broader point which is that any system or intelligence, human or otherwise, is limited by the data it is able to access. If a company has a very messy and/or disfunctional data landscape[1] then it is difficult bordering on impossible to paper over the cracks with systems or operational processes. [1] which I gave an intentionally extreme example of, but lots of companies are formed from multiple acquisitions or have systems built by rival IT groups in different parts of the org or by outside vendors or contractors etc so a milder form of this is very common in my experience.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

> It’s that you can’t pop some system atop a teetering ziggurat of shitty data from mutually incompatible systems and think the fundamental problems are going to just disappear. I mean, works for CSS.

sandworm101 3y ago

>> and think the fundamental problems are going to just disappear. Au contraire. If you implement things poorly enough then all those people on the phone asking for tech support really do just go away. They learn to solve their own problems. Make your problem-solving/help-line interface sufficiently horrible that it develops a reputation (Google) and they won't even make an attempt to contact you.

RamenJunkie_ 3y ago
Sometimes I think this is the point. Like lately out cell service has been horrible at the house and my wife keeps asking me to call them but why? It's just going to be screaming into the void of some automated system and nothing will be done.
- elcritch 3y ago
  Call to cancel your account, mention moving to another service, etc. Often times companies will transfer you to more empowered "retention specialists".
  - asimpleusecase 3y ago
    Recently, I noticed my broadband fees were double what the company would charge a new customer at the same address. I reached out to the telecom and stated with the “I’d like to close my service” track. That got me a human but when it was clear that my issue was price they had a script for that. It was full of delays and circular “offers”. After a hour it finally end with their final offer - split the difference between what I am paying and the new customer price. What is amazing to me is that another competitor offers the same new customer price they do and it all uses the same infrastructure. It is literally a terminal entry switching process. Apparently they have calculated they can keep more a actually lose very few customers.

ilaksh 3y ago

But GPT-4 100% could have looked that up and given you that information. It's clearly not a unique situation.

mindslight 3y ago

I wish I could pass on some wisdom or tips for how to deal with estate crap better, but I don't know that there is. It's just a fucking slog. The best cases are where you say the magic word, it gets you to a dedicated department staffed by real humans who actually know what they're talking about, sends you the right paperwork, and that paperwork finishes out what you need from them. The bad cases are basically an exercise in reverse engineering their org chart, to figure out what department is actually responsible for a given corner case, and how their policies and the legal regulations actually fit together. I remember being on the phone with Vanguard to sort something out, I think I got pinballed between 4-5 different ostensibly-human reps in changing departments. Each one profusely apologizing that they had to transfer me again, and I'm just laughing it off because it's the only way to survive. Get a durable power of attorney for your mother sooner rather than later. It won't solve everything, but can make some inquiries easier to just do on your own rather than needing a group project. Also health care proxy and a new will if those are necessary. IME old people can be very open to such changes soon after a death, but then become much more hesitant and procrastinatey months later. I think it's the difference between ascribing the reason to their partner's death, or to their own looming death. Strike while the iron is hot.