4 ms·

In our line of business, our call center workers spend a significant portion (hours) of their time writing up notes and other information after calls. Having a

In our line of business, our call center workers spend a significant portion (hours) of their time writing up notes and other information after calls. Having automated transcription and summarization (approved by the user) will return a ton of time to them and make them more efficient. And they could never be replaced, imo. The human impact in our sector is too important. A machine cannot, at least not yet, sympathize, joke, and persuade in the right balance, especially when the other party is emotionally agitated.

idopmstuff 3y ago
> And they could never be replaced, imo. > A machine cannot, at least not yet I think we really need to get away from this idea that people can never be replaced. You've contradicted yourself with "at least not yet" two sentences later - that's not to criticize you, I think you're correct in the latter instance and doing something a lot of people do. They see the reasons that people can't be replaced now and just extrapolate that out to forever, while sort of handwaving away the fact that they realize that AI is rapidly improving. I think it's very clear that humans in these roles will be replaced in, say, 50 years. The question is how much sooner than that will it actually be - 20 years? 10? 5? 1-2?
- kypro 3y ago
  > The human impact in our sector is too important. A machine cannot, at least not yet, sympathize, joke, and persuade in the right balance, especially when the other party is emotionally agitated. I'd also add that even the reasoning for why the human isn't replaceable here is debatable. I've never called a call centre for sympathy or jokes. It's always because I have a query I want an answer to or problem I want sorted ASAP. Assuming the benefit of an AI call centre would be that I wouldn't have to wait on hold, I'd rather have the AI centre than the inefficient human one. In scenarios where an AI can't easily deal with the query, then sure, I see why it would be good to have a sympathetic human who can take the call, but 90% of the time an AI would do just fine. I think this is what a lot of people get wrong about automation. Everyone likes to point out how their job has these one or two really difficult bits, while missing that 90% of the job is easy. As an example, here in the UK a lot of cashiers have now been replaced with self-checkouts, despite the fact we're still far from fully automating the cashier's job. We still need a couple of people on hand when there's security tags to remove or when someone needs IDing, etc. But that doesn't change the fact there's far fewer of them because 90% of the job can be automated.
  - c0brac0bra 3y ago
    > I've never called a call centre for sympathy or jokes. It's always because I have a query I want an answer to or problem I want sorted ASAP. Not every problem has a quick solution. Many are thorny and include lots of variables and long time spans. Imagine trying to choose the right treatment facility for a child with leukemia that will accommodate your insurance and finances. Or what sort of care a senior parent with dementia and diabetes needs. When the stakes are that high, having a human who can appreciate your situation and emotional state is almost mandatory.
    - idopmstuff 3y ago
      > Not every problem has a quick solution. Many are thorny and include lots of variables and long time spans. Well-implemented AI ought to eliminate a lot of those long time spans, though. No more escalation or transfers required, no time spent looking things up - you've got a call center agent who isn't accessing the relevant internal systems, they're integrated with them (as well as all other call center agents).
      - worthless-trash 3y ago
        I imagine it will play out like this scene in elysium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZb5WyIukOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZb5WyIukOc
noobermin 3y ago
Tell you half brained friends who think they can fire their call support staff. Literally no one in the management world has gotten the memo because it is becoming harder to get a problem solved with a human when a google search or reading through docs won't suffice.

idopmstuff 3y ago

> And they could never be replaced, imo. > A machine cannot, at least not yet I think we really need to get away from this idea that people can never be replaced. You've contradicted yourself with "at least not yet" two sentences later - that's not to criticize you, I think you're correct in the latter instance and doing something a lot of people do. They see the reasons that people can't be replaced now and just extrapolate that out to forever, while sort of handwaving away the fact that they realize that AI is rapidly improving. I think it's very clear that humans in these roles will be replaced in, say, 50 years. The question is how much sooner than that will it actually be - 20 years? 10? 5? 1-2?

kypro 3y ago
> The human impact in our sector is too important. A machine cannot, at least not yet, sympathize, joke, and persuade in the right balance, especially when the other party is emotionally agitated. I'd also add that even the reasoning for why the human isn't replaceable here is debatable. I've never called a call centre for sympathy or jokes. It's always because I have a query I want an answer to or problem I want sorted ASAP. Assuming the benefit of an AI call centre would be that I wouldn't have to wait on hold, I'd rather have the AI centre than the inefficient human one. In scenarios where an AI can't easily deal with the query, then sure, I see why it would be good to have a sympathetic human who can take the call, but 90% of the time an AI would do just fine. I think this is what a lot of people get wrong about automation. Everyone likes to point out how their job has these one or two really difficult bits, while missing that 90% of the job is easy. As an example, here in the UK a lot of cashiers have now been replaced with self-checkouts, despite the fact we're still far from fully automating the cashier's job. We still need a couple of people on hand when there's security tags to remove or when someone needs IDing, etc. But that doesn't change the fact there's far fewer of them because 90% of the job can be automated.
- c0brac0bra 3y ago
  > I've never called a call centre for sympathy or jokes. It's always because I have a query I want an answer to or problem I want sorted ASAP. Not every problem has a quick solution. Many are thorny and include lots of variables and long time spans. Imagine trying to choose the right treatment facility for a child with leukemia that will accommodate your insurance and finances. Or what sort of care a senior parent with dementia and diabetes needs. When the stakes are that high, having a human who can appreciate your situation and emotional state is almost mandatory.
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    > Not every problem has a quick solution. Many are thorny and include lots of variables and long time spans. Well-implemented AI ought to eliminate a lot of those long time spans, though. No more escalation or transfers required, no time spent looking things up - you've got a call center agent who isn't accessing the relevant internal systems, they're integrated with them (as well as all other call center agents).
    - worthless-trash 3y ago
      I imagine it will play out like this scene in elysium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZb5WyIukOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZb5WyIukOc

noobermin 3y ago

Tell you half brained friends who think they can fire their call support staff. Literally no one in the management world has gotten the memo because it is becoming harder to get a problem solved with a human when a google search or reading through docs won't suffice.