7 ms·

>bias towards speaking to a human on the phone Hatred of phone calls aside, I heard an interesting take from Alex Hormozi (paraphrased): "You're on the phone a

by andai 3y ago

>bias towards speaking to a human on the phone Hatred of phone calls aside, I heard an interesting take from Alex Hormozi (paraphrased): "You're on the phone and you say, are you human? No? Oh thank God, because you know the AI has a thousand times more experience than all the humans combined."

brabel 3y ago
I think that's a point a lot of people are missing. If AI can already talk about certain topics better than most humans, imagine in the future. There may be a time when talking to humans may become really underwhelming compared to all-knowing AIs.
- the_other 3y ago
  The AI will have more experience composing bullshit put-offs, but even less access to the systems that control the systems that are exhibiting problems customers currently experience. We'll see the problem of layered customer-service (where the first two layers have no power, other than to maybe turn on some pre-configured bonus/offset/coupon) made worse by further automation.
- Mordisquitos 3y ago
  Why have all-knowing customer-support AIs waste their time and resources talking with underwhelming human customers such as myself? It would be much more efficient for customer support calls to be made by all-knowing personal assistant AIs, which can surely explain the nature of the problem much better than me, as well as being better able to infallibly put in practice whatever the all-knowing customer-support AI suggested.
  - layer8 3y ago
    Even better, they may be able to prompt-inject the support AI to actually escalate the support case.
mort96 3y ago
Is that supposed to be a serious opinion about contemporary AI..? Because that's crazy to me. Humans can be reasoned with. AI can't. My experience with the likes of ChatGPT tells me that if the AI is wrong about something (which it very very often is), there's no point trying to explain to it that it's wrong or how it's wrong, it will say something like "You are right, sorry for the confusion." and follow up with the same or a similar error again. AI might eventually become an alright first line, but losing the option to speak with a human -- an intelligent entity which can actually be reasoned with -- seems dystopic.
- RufusJacksons 3y ago
  Having worked in customer service before, the only time customers tried to reason with me was when they were wrong. For at least a large portion of customer service calls, the ability to reason is a negative. Customer calls to say the product is faulty, and with a simple question they admit they didn’t connect the ground wire. They then try to reason with me that they deserve a warranty replacement because their mum just got cancer - fuck reason on cs calls. (Reason might still have a place on complex situations [which yours never is], customer retainment, sales etc) Even as the top tier tech support for a complex product, 99% of my calls could have been dealt with well by chat gpt in its current form. And my customers would have a more concise outcome, without the variability of my mood, hold times, judgement of their tone etc to effect my advice. I can’t wait for more ai cs so I can stop talking to a fuckwhit, and talk to an ai that’s almost certainly far more equipped to handle my query.
  - mort96 3y ago
    I'm not talking about a customer arguing that they deserve warranty. I mean if the human CS agent misunderstands the problem, the customer can explain the problem better and try to make the human CS agent understand. If the "AI" CS agent misunderstands the problem, there is no recourse.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      Not to mention when you have a problem the AI hasn't been trained for. With humans you have a chance to escalate. With a chatbot, you might as well take your business somewhere else.
animuchan 3y ago
Maybe in future. Right now it's infuriating and miserable, to the point I will absolutely switch any service provider the moment they subject me to this torture. Old systems with "Press 1 to talk to a person" were bad enough, the AI-based ones are so much worse.

by andai 3y ago

brabel 3y ago

I think that's a point a lot of people are missing. If AI can already talk about certain topics better than most humans, imagine in the future. There may be a time when talking to humans may become really underwhelming compared to all-knowing AIs.

the_other 3y ago
The AI will have more experience composing bullshit put-offs, but even less access to the systems that control the systems that are exhibiting problems customers currently experience. We'll see the problem of layered customer-service (where the first two layers have no power, other than to maybe turn on some pre-configured bonus/offset/coupon) made worse by further automation.
Mordisquitos 3y ago
Why have all-knowing customer-support AIs waste their time and resources talking with underwhelming human customers such as myself? It would be much more efficient for customer support calls to be made by all-knowing personal assistant AIs, which can surely explain the nature of the problem much better than me, as well as being better able to infallibly put in practice whatever the all-knowing customer-support AI suggested.
- layer8 3y ago
  Even better, they may be able to prompt-inject the support AI to actually escalate the support case.

mort96 3y ago

Is that supposed to be a serious opinion about contemporary AI..? Because that's crazy to me. Humans can be reasoned with. AI can't. My experience with the likes of ChatGPT tells me that if the AI is wrong about something (which it very very often is), there's no point trying to explain to it that it's wrong or how it's wrong, it will say something like "You are right, sorry for the confusion." and follow up with the same or a similar error again. AI might eventually become an alright first line, but losing the option to speak with a human -- an intelligent entity which can actually be reasoned with -- seems dystopic.

RufusJacksons 3y ago
Having worked in customer service before, the only time customers tried to reason with me was when they were wrong. For at least a large portion of customer service calls, the ability to reason is a negative. Customer calls to say the product is faulty, and with a simple question they admit they didn’t connect the ground wire. They then try to reason with me that they deserve a warranty replacement because their mum just got cancer - fuck reason on cs calls. (Reason might still have a place on complex situations [which yours never is], customer retainment, sales etc) Even as the top tier tech support for a complex product, 99% of my calls could have been dealt with well by chat gpt in its current form. And my customers would have a more concise outcome, without the variability of my mood, hold times, judgement of their tone etc to effect my advice. I can’t wait for more ai cs so I can stop talking to a fuckwhit, and talk to an ai that’s almost certainly far more equipped to handle my query.
- mort96 3y ago
  I'm not talking about a customer arguing that they deserve warranty. I mean if the human CS agent misunderstands the problem, the customer can explain the problem better and try to make the human CS agent understand. If the "AI" CS agent misunderstands the problem, there is no recourse.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Not to mention when you have a problem the AI hasn't been trained for. With humans you have a chance to escalate. With a chatbot, you might as well take your business somewhere else.

animuchan 3y ago

Maybe in future. Right now it's infuriating and miserable, to the point I will absolutely switch any service provider the moment they subject me to this torture. Old systems with "Press 1 to talk to a person" were bad enough, the AI-based ones are so much worse.