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SoftBank's new AI makes angry customers sound calm on phone

dade_ 2y ago
This is exactly what not to do. I'd expect customer sat and churn to be a catastrophe. Video calls with high stress customers is a much better and probably far less expensive solution.
frenchie4111 2y ago
Has anyone found a demo of this thing? I'm super curious
- achristmascarl 2y ago
  The video on this page has one brief example: https://newsonjapan.com/article/142113.php https://newsonjapan.com/article/142113.php
distributedsean 2y ago
Classic. Instead of fixing the problems so there are no angry customers just make it so the angry customers can’t be heard. What could possibly go wrong.
- rokkamokka 2y ago
  Does it? It doesn't change the content, just the tone. If I were a call center operator I might want something like this
  - notaustinpowers 2y ago
    The content is only a part of it. We are a species specially-suited to pick up on others emotional states and factor that in our responses. A mismatch in response to certain emotions is going to cause further problems as, to an angry customer, it comes off as patronizing, dismissive, and disrespectful. Typically, angry customers are conveying severity and urgency. If you do not respond with a similar sense of severity or urgency you now have two people who aren't on the same page. That's not a good foundation to solve problems on.
    - b112 2y ago
      There's also good angry, where you can tell the person is angry, but not at the call center person. I personally take care in this, saying things to reassure, such as indicating that I know it's the company's fault, not the rep's. This vecomes more of a "bartender" situation, where the anger is clearly at the situation, not the rep, and can create a more engaged, helpful response even. I think one could sue for purposefully changing a person's appearance or voice, without their consent. And no, calling a help line can never ever have a tos enforced, as often the entity is required by law to deal with warranty or other issues. No tos applies. Back to changing the voice, as others have mentioned, tenor, tone, etc all are part of speaking. They cannot be separated. Tone is often, for example, brought up in testimony as it conveys something. It has as much meaning as the words. I would be astonished if this isn't challenged soon.
      - pixl97 2y ago
        As someone that's worked in call centers for a fair time in my life, I'm not sure about this. I've worked for a cable company for a while that really turned to shit, and went into buying off representatives rather than fixing their technical problems (heavily investing in making city owned fiber illegal in many states). Customers being enraged with us was a very strong motivation for me to leave and find better work with a less abusive company. And yes, call centers commonly shut down/move/ or actually start giving better service when they can't keep staff because they are such a crap company that their users are in constant rage mode.
- 39896880 2y ago
  There will always be angry customers. People who call customer service and abuse the representative are not expressing anger solely due to the complaint. It’s an accumulation of other things in their lives.
  - realce 2y ago
    > There will always be angry customers. There will always be companies that make their customers angry. You're really going against people seeking solutions from companies they pay? I'm amazed anyone would downvote this - how am I disillusion here?
    - BadHumans 2y ago
      The customer is not always right.
    - mind-blight 2y ago
      Please don't straw man. Nothing in OP's comment said they're against fixing issues. But they - correctly - pointed out that you won't be able to completely eliminate abusive callers even if you're fixing issues. They never once presented it as dichotomy.
      - realce 2y ago
        I would argue the strawman is the depiction of every upset customer being irate because of a personal problem instead of the issue they're contacting customer service about.
        Capricorn2481 2y ago
        Agreed
        mind-blight 2y ago
        > the depiction of every upset customer being irate because of a personal problem That's the straw man. I don't see anything in the parent comment that implies or expresses that. It says 1. "There will always be a subset of people who act irate or abusively for external reasons", not 2. "All people who are irate or abusive due to external reasons" Your flipping the implication within the sentence, then arguing against that
teeray 2y ago
so now the actual content of what the customers are saying will adjust to be more harmful to compensate.
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Failing to acknowledge the very real emotions your company has caused a customer, who is paying you. Classic!
- wesleyyue 2y ago
  You can acknowledge how customers feel while shielding your customer facing staff from verbal abuse. If you've ever worked a customer facing job you'll understand.
  - jjulius 2y ago
    You're not necessarily wrong, but I can't help but think that it may cause further frustration for me if I'm trying to convey a certain sentiment of frustration (for the sake of the argument, let's say that I'm not being an outright asshole at this point) that may be lost on the rep that I am talking to, resulting in a misunderstanding, which would further irritate me and escalate the situation. There's genuinely something to be said about honesty and accurately understanding someone.
gleenn 2y ago
I would be extremely weirded out if I took a really angry tone with someone and they completely ignored it. It would probably be infuriating to some too if they continued sounding really chipper and positive and the customer is really upset. It might have the exact opposite effect and customers might just start saying toneless but very mean words to get their point across.
- morkalork 2y ago
  It's already kinda lika that though.
awestroke 2y ago
Sounds like a great use case for AI. Dealing with angry customers all day must be hell for one's mental health.
vivzkestrel 2y ago
ubisoft s gonna buy this customer support tech before anyone else
thorum 2y ago
I wonder does it work in real time or does it add latency after each sentence?
drivingmenuts 2y ago
I guess it’s always April 1 somewhere in the world
morkalork 2y ago
That technology will pair nicely with this: https://www.vice.com/en/article/akek7g/this-startup-is-selling-tech-to-make-call-center-workers-sound-like-white-americans https://www.vice.com/en/article/akek7g/this-startup-is-selli... What a dystopian future that will be, having a whole telephone conversation where neither of you hears the other's real voice.
- lxgr 2y ago
  > having a whole telephone conversation where neither of you hears the other's real voice This is actually not the worst-case outcome, in my view. The silver lining on the horizon is that hopefully there will also be a consumer-side model counterpart to these things: I'd love to be able to just write an email. If the company is smart and offers a support email address, they can just get the text directly; if they insist on wasting my time by having only a number to call, their bot (or employee, but I suspect this will become increasingly rare soon) can argue with my bot.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Maybe it will all be good when there's an AI assistant that I can command to "Call the Foobar Company and cancel my subscription" and it can figure out the deeply hidden customer service phone number, navigate the phone tree menu, and then talk to their AI service agent to get my subscription canceled. It could be marketed as the subscription terminator. "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until your subscription is canceled!
afro88 2y ago
They should still expose the emotion level to the call center operator, just in a different way. Have something on the UI that indicates the level of emotion. It's still an important metric to take into account when resolving the customer enquiry.
- wvenable 2y ago
  This makes the assumption that the emotional level of the caller matches the severity of the issue but I don't think that is often the case.
  - guntars 2y ago
    Perhaps not in reality, but it's the customer perception that matters.
    - t-writescode 2y ago
      The whole point of this tool is to help relax the employee. The customer perception doesn’t matter here.
      - dotnet00 2y ago
        1. Customer is mad about problem 2. Support person does not know this and speaks as if the other side is happy and casual 3. Customer gets even more mad because they feel their problem isn't being taken seriously, leading to some sort of escalation Customer perception does matter.
        lupire 2y ago
        Obviously the AI needs to adjust the support person's voice to match the customer's, so the customer gets back what they give. Prior art from art: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo
        t-writescode 2y ago
openmajestic 2y ago
This use-case may be good or bad, but the logic underneath it is 100% correct IMO. Fundamentally, these new models allow you to encode and communicate high-level thoughts in the same way that the internet allowed you to encode and communicate well-defined information. The natural evolution of this technology is to insert it into human communication channels and automatically transform raw thoughts into something better for the other end of the channel. "Better" is open to interpretation and going to be very interesting in this new world, but there are so many options. Why not a version of HackerNews that doesn't just have commenting guidelines, but actually automatically enforces them? Or a chrome extension that takes HN comments and transforms them all to be kinder (or whatever you want) when you open a thread? Or a text input box that automatically rewrites (or proposes a rewrite of) your comments if they don't meet the standards you have for yourself?
- pixl97 2y ago
  >but actually automatically enforces them? [strike]Democracy[/strike]Moderation is non-negotiable.
  - digging 2y ago
    > Moderation is non-negotiable. Typically, yes, it is.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      [What you type in the text field] This new moderation system sucks, who the hell thought of this?! [What is displayed to the world] I love this new moderation system, makes the site so much better to use! ---- You then think, fuck this, I'm deleting my account. Which you do losing access to it. But you see all your content is still there, and new posts are being made daily. Welcome to the new AI world where humans need not even apply. Will it get this bad, no idea, but I bet some site will try it.
- skybrian 2y ago
  Smarter writing tools might be cool, but thinking of this as “enforcement” is kind of backwards given the current state of technology. AI is gullible and untrustworthy and it’s up to us to vet the results, because they could be bananas. I think proposing a rewrite and letting people decide (and make final edits) could work well, though.
teepo 2y ago
I like this use case. - Even if not entirely practical, it highlights a real issue and challenge we face as a society. Let's try to auto-tune down the tone of angry customers. Our brains are wired to connect with others, and this includes picking up on and replicating emotions and behaviors. It's part of our mirror neuron system, which helps us understand and empathize with others. While this is beneficial in many social interactions, it can lead to escalation in conflict situations if not managed properly.
renegade-otter 2y ago
Maybe just put your customer support agents into massage chairs?
gtirloni 2y ago
> Good news for call center operators who are worn down by hostile customers with unreasonable demands What about angry customers with reasonable demands? Can the AI identify that?
- t-writescode 2y ago
  Then their demands will still be reasonable, their frustrated tone will fade. The words are still good.
  - gtirloni 2y ago
    I can't help but notice LLMs are producing voices that are each day more human-like and now we expect the uniqueness of human voices and what they're trying to communicate to just fade away. At which point does it stop making sense to have a human at the other side? Just let frustrated humans talk to the LLMs. They aren't hurt by your frustrated voice.
    - t-writescode 2y ago
      There are still jobs that absolutely, positively require a human, and I fear very much for situations where I need a human to talk to to resolve an issue, but one doesn't exist. As a particularly morbid example, most systems out there are not prepared, at all, for an account holder to be dead and other people need to resolve their matters. Navigating the more robust conversation trees to get to a human in those extreme edge-cases is a whole thing.
altairprime 2y ago
I wonder if they’d detect my calm, angry voice, learned from my customer service mother as a child. It’s not popular relative to American rage but it’s been an invaluable life skill.
- baxtr 2y ago
  What is calm and angry exactly though? Can you share a sample video?
  - altairprime 2y ago
    It’s a calm demeanor and a visibly upset affect. Anger is not rage, etc. I do not have any videos of being upset (and certainly HN is no safe place to share one regardless).
baryphonic 2y ago
I wonder how this AI interprets customers who express anger and frustration through sarcasm
mbil 2y ago
I feel like this comment will receive some visceral reactions, but I wonder whether similar technology or even LLMs could be used in emergency dispatch in the future. There could be benefits in terms of accuracy, speed, information verification, etc. Not to mention it would spare some 911 operators of PTSD.
- drschwabe 2y ago
  Not sure about realtime voiceover and not in emergency services myself but having an LLM fed the call audio to generate supplmentary summary of what was discussed could certainly be beneficial in situations where the operator needed clarity or there was a mistaken address or important detail that needed double-checking after the call.
baxtr 2y ago
HN's new AI makes angry commentators' comments sound calm. Wonder how people here would like that.
- krapp 2y ago
  I think I facetiously suggested that once, that all comments on HN should be run through an AI filter and rewritten for maximum civility, technical correctness and factual accuracy, with the most common branches of conversation being pregenerated to save time. And then eventually the entire forum could be automated, with nothing but an AI crawling the web, posting and commenting. It would be both terrible and hilarious. I still kind of want to see what it would look like.
SoftTalker 2y ago
This is only needed until the AI is good enough to totally replace the human customer service agents. And that probably isn't too far off. The AI won't care if the human on the phone is angry, since it doesn't have emotions. There could be a silver lining. A big part of the reason that it's so hard to talk to a person when you call is that people are very expensive. If the AI is cheap enough, everyone will be able to speak to a "representative" without waiting on hold or navigating a menu. It can just answer immediately and say "how can I help you" and have a conversation. And if the AI is helpful enough, fewer callers will be angry, because their problem is being solved and they aren't spending hours on hold or being asked inane questions from a script. Silver lining for everyone except those employed in call centers, of course.
- ordu 2y ago
  > The AI won't care if the human on the phone is angry, since it doesn't have emotions. I'd say that AI can care about humans emotions, but the wonderful thing is AI doesn't have to have programmed emotional responses to emotions of others. Theoretically speaking, AI could respond to anger by applying some soothing techniques, like acknowledging emotions and active listening.
  - M95D 2y ago
    I would prefer it would solve my problem instead.
- thecrash 2y ago
  > If the AI is cheap enough, everyone will be able to speak to a "representative" without waiting on hold or navigating a menu. Sometimes people want to "speak to a representative" because they're too lazy to navigate a menu or search, and would prefer to use a natural language interface. AI will definitely help with that. But for most people - especially younger people - our interface desires are not the issue. We prefer navigating a menu interface to having a conversation with anyone - AI or human! We want to "speak to a representative" because the automated interfaces are deliberately designed not to let us do the thing we need to do. The customer service representative is not our servant, they're a guard who holds the keys to the door we need to enter. Will companies give those keys to an LLM? I doubt it. It's certainly possible to trick CSRs, but it's easier (and more automatable) to trick LLMs. Instead, we'll get LLMs which claim to be CSRs but don't actually have any keys, bringing us back to the time-honored demand "I want to speak to a human!"
pton_xd 2y ago
Makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, I think there will be a tipping point where if there's enough hints that what you're saying over the phone is not exactly what the other person is hearing, you will become even more frustrated / angry and will simply stop trusting support calls in general. Humans are too perceptive.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Are there any videos/audio examples of this in action?
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
<pushes AI button> "These aren't the droids you're looking for"
leumon 2y ago
I wonder what would happen if the customer is very happy and having an enjoyable conversation. Would the AI remove the emotions here too, resulting in a completely monotonic voice?
hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
Filtering and distortion of communication. Suits well the age of appearances we live in.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
joecot 2y ago
> According to the company, the biggest burdens on operators are hearing abusive language and being trapped in long conversations with customers who will not get off the line—such as when making persistent requests for apologies. > Nakatani said, “AI is good at handling complaints and can do so for long hours, but what angry customers want is for a human to apologize to them.” An aside: is this something people really call up call centers for, for an apology? If I'm calling it's because I need something, or something is wrong and I need it fixed. I don't need a random call center person to apologize on behalf of a corporation. I just need my thing resolved.
SenHeng 2y ago
This article lacks context. For the past year or so, the term 'customer harassment' has become a trend in Japan. It's basically customers abusing the overly polite service staff over very minor issues. This AI is introduced to combat this, as there is now a severe staff shortage in Japan due to the reducing population and companies are having trouble enticing younger people into these kinds of jobs. Here's a good article explaining it. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3105/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3105/ > Tokyo saying no to 'customer harassment' > Types of 'customer harassment' > - Targeting individuals as a form of stress relief. > - A distorted sense of justice, in which people express their feelings for a long time as advice. > - Attack type, in which people demand things such as having a person kneel down on the ground. > - Illusion type, in which people think they are passing the responsibility on to others. > - Strong obsession, in which mentally unstable people are obsessed with listening to their own opinions.
staircasebug 2y ago
Sounds like something that can be applied to the call center operator voice as well.

This is exactly what not to do. I'd expect customer sat and churn to be a catastrophe. Video calls with high stress customers is a much better and probably far less expensive solution.

frenchie4111 2y ago

Has anyone found a demo of this thing? I'm super curious

achristmascarl 2y ago
The video on this page has one brief example: https://newsonjapan.com/article/142113.php https://newsonjapan.com/article/142113.php

distributedsean 2y ago

Classic. Instead of fixing the problems so there are no angry customers just make it so the angry customers can’t be heard. What could possibly go wrong.

rokkamokka 2y ago
Does it? It doesn't change the content, just the tone. If I were a call center operator I might want something like this
- notaustinpowers 2y ago
  The content is only a part of it. We are a species specially-suited to pick up on others emotional states and factor that in our responses. A mismatch in response to certain emotions is going to cause further problems as, to an angry customer, it comes off as patronizing, dismissive, and disrespectful. Typically, angry customers are conveying severity and urgency. If you do not respond with a similar sense of severity or urgency you now have two people who aren't on the same page. That's not a good foundation to solve problems on.
  - b112 2y ago
    There's also good angry, where you can tell the person is angry, but not at the call center person. I personally take care in this, saying things to reassure, such as indicating that I know it's the company's fault, not the rep's. This vecomes more of a "bartender" situation, where the anger is clearly at the situation, not the rep, and can create a more engaged, helpful response even. I think one could sue for purposefully changing a person's appearance or voice, without their consent. And no, calling a help line can never ever have a tos enforced, as often the entity is required by law to deal with warranty or other issues. No tos applies. Back to changing the voice, as others have mentioned, tenor, tone, etc all are part of speaking. They cannot be separated. Tone is often, for example, brought up in testimony as it conveys something. It has as much meaning as the words. I would be astonished if this isn't challenged soon.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      As someone that's worked in call centers for a fair time in my life, I'm not sure about this. I've worked for a cable company for a while that really turned to shit, and went into buying off representatives rather than fixing their technical problems (heavily investing in making city owned fiber illegal in many states). Customers being enraged with us was a very strong motivation for me to leave and find better work with a less abusive company. And yes, call centers commonly shut down/move/ or actually start giving better service when they can't keep staff because they are such a crap company that their users are in constant rage mode.
39896880 2y ago
There will always be angry customers. People who call customer service and abuse the representative are not expressing anger solely due to the complaint. It’s an accumulation of other things in their lives.
- realce 2y ago
  > There will always be angry customers. There will always be companies that make their customers angry. You're really going against people seeking solutions from companies they pay? I'm amazed anyone would downvote this - how am I disillusion here?
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    The customer is not always right.
  - mind-blight 2y ago
    Please don't straw man. Nothing in OP's comment said they're against fixing issues. But they - correctly - pointed out that you won't be able to completely eliminate abusive callers even if you're fixing issues. They never once presented it as dichotomy.
    - realce 2y ago
      I would argue the strawman is the depiction of every upset customer being irate because of a personal problem instead of the issue they're contacting customer service about.
      - Capricorn2481 2y ago
        Agreed
      - mind-blight 2y ago
        > the depiction of every upset customer being irate because of a personal problem That's the straw man. I don't see anything in the parent comment that implies or expresses that. It says 1. "There will always be a subset of people who act irate or abusively for external reasons", not 2. "All people who are irate or abusive due to external reasons" Your flipping the implication within the sentence, then arguing against that

teeray 2y ago

so now the actual content of what the customers are saying will adjust to be more harmful to compensate.

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

Failing to acknowledge the very real emotions your company has caused a customer, who is paying you. Classic!

wesleyyue 2y ago
You can acknowledge how customers feel while shielding your customer facing staff from verbal abuse. If you've ever worked a customer facing job you'll understand.
- jjulius 2y ago
  You're not necessarily wrong, but I can't help but think that it may cause further frustration for me if I'm trying to convey a certain sentiment of frustration (for the sake of the argument, let's say that I'm not being an outright asshole at this point) that may be lost on the rep that I am talking to, resulting in a misunderstanding, which would further irritate me and escalate the situation. There's genuinely something to be said about honesty and accurately understanding someone.

gleenn 2y ago

I would be extremely weirded out if I took a really angry tone with someone and they completely ignored it. It would probably be infuriating to some too if they continued sounding really chipper and positive and the customer is really upset. It might have the exact opposite effect and customers might just start saying toneless but very mean words to get their point across.

morkalork 2y ago
It's already kinda lika that though.

awestroke 2y ago

Sounds like a great use case for AI. Dealing with angry customers all day must be hell for one's mental health.

vivzkestrel 2y ago

ubisoft s gonna buy this customer support tech before anyone else

thorum 2y ago

I wonder does it work in real time or does it add latency after each sentence?

drivingmenuts 2y ago

I guess it’s always April 1 somewhere in the world

morkalork 2y ago

That technology will pair nicely with this: https://www.vice.com/en/article/akek7g/this-startup-is-selling-tech-to-make-call-center-workers-sound-like-white-americans https://www.vice.com/en/article/akek7g/this-startup-is-selli... What a dystopian future that will be, having a whole telephone conversation where neither of you hears the other's real voice.

lxgr 2y ago
> having a whole telephone conversation where neither of you hears the other's real voice This is actually not the worst-case outcome, in my view. The silver lining on the horizon is that hopefully there will also be a consumer-side model counterpart to these things: I'd love to be able to just write an email. If the company is smart and offers a support email address, they can just get the text directly; if they insist on wasting my time by having only a number to call, their bot (or employee, but I suspect this will become increasingly rare soon) can argue with my bot.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Maybe it will all be good when there's an AI assistant that I can command to "Call the Foobar Company and cancel my subscription" and it can figure out the deeply hidden customer service phone number, navigate the phone tree menu, and then talk to their AI service agent to get my subscription canceled. It could be marketed as the subscription terminator. "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until your subscription is canceled!

afro88 2y ago

They should still expose the emotion level to the call center operator, just in a different way. Have something on the UI that indicates the level of emotion. It's still an important metric to take into account when resolving the customer enquiry.

wvenable 2y ago
This makes the assumption that the emotional level of the caller matches the severity of the issue but I don't think that is often the case.
- guntars 2y ago
  Perhaps not in reality, but it's the customer perception that matters.
  - t-writescode 2y ago
    The whole point of this tool is to help relax the employee. The customer perception doesn’t matter here.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      1. Customer is mad about problem 2. Support person does not know this and speaks as if the other side is happy and casual 3. Customer gets even more mad because they feel their problem isn't being taken seriously, leading to some sort of escalation Customer perception does matter.
      - lupire 2y ago
        Obviously the AI needs to adjust the support person's voice to match the customer's, so the customer gets back what they give. Prior art from art: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo
      - t-writescode 2y ago

openmajestic 2y ago

This use-case may be good or bad, but the logic underneath it is 100% correct IMO. Fundamentally, these new models allow you to encode and communicate high-level thoughts in the same way that the internet allowed you to encode and communicate well-defined information. The natural evolution of this technology is to insert it into human communication channels and automatically transform raw thoughts into something better for the other end of the channel. "Better" is open to interpretation and going to be very interesting in this new world, but there are so many options. Why not a version of HackerNews that doesn't just have commenting guidelines, but actually automatically enforces them? Or a chrome extension that takes HN comments and transforms them all to be kinder (or whatever you want) when you open a thread? Or a text input box that automatically rewrites (or proposes a rewrite of) your comments if they don't meet the standards you have for yourself?

pixl97 2y ago
>but actually automatically enforces them? [strike]Democracy[/strike]Moderation is non-negotiable.
- digging 2y ago
  > Moderation is non-negotiable. Typically, yes, it is.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    [What you type in the text field] This new moderation system sucks, who the hell thought of this?! [What is displayed to the world] I love this new moderation system, makes the site so much better to use! ---- You then think, fuck this, I'm deleting my account. Which you do losing access to it. But you see all your content is still there, and new posts are being made daily. Welcome to the new AI world where humans need not even apply. Will it get this bad, no idea, but I bet some site will try it.
skybrian 2y ago
Smarter writing tools might be cool, but thinking of this as “enforcement” is kind of backwards given the current state of technology. AI is gullible and untrustworthy and it’s up to us to vet the results, because they could be bananas. I think proposing a rewrite and letting people decide (and make final edits) could work well, though.

teepo 2y ago

I like this use case. - Even if not entirely practical, it highlights a real issue and challenge we face as a society. Let's try to auto-tune down the tone of angry customers. Our brains are wired to connect with others, and this includes picking up on and replicating emotions and behaviors. It's part of our mirror neuron system, which helps us understand and empathize with others. While this is beneficial in many social interactions, it can lead to escalation in conflict situations if not managed properly.

renegade-otter 2y ago

Maybe just put your customer support agents into massage chairs?

gtirloni 2y ago

> Good news for call center operators who are worn down by hostile customers with unreasonable demands What about angry customers with reasonable demands? Can the AI identify that?

t-writescode 2y ago
Then their demands will still be reasonable, their frustrated tone will fade. The words are still good.
- gtirloni 2y ago
  I can't help but notice LLMs are producing voices that are each day more human-like and now we expect the uniqueness of human voices and what they're trying to communicate to just fade away. At which point does it stop making sense to have a human at the other side? Just let frustrated humans talk to the LLMs. They aren't hurt by your frustrated voice.
  - t-writescode 2y ago
    There are still jobs that absolutely, positively require a human, and I fear very much for situations where I need a human to talk to to resolve an issue, but one doesn't exist. As a particularly morbid example, most systems out there are not prepared, at all, for an account holder to be dead and other people need to resolve their matters. Navigating the more robust conversation trees to get to a human in those extreme edge-cases is a whole thing.

altairprime 2y ago

I wonder if they’d detect my calm, angry voice, learned from my customer service mother as a child. It’s not popular relative to American rage but it’s been an invaluable life skill.

baxtr 2y ago
What is calm and angry exactly though? Can you share a sample video?
- altairprime 2y ago
  It’s a calm demeanor and a visibly upset affect. Anger is not rage, etc. I do not have any videos of being upset (and certainly HN is no safe place to share one regardless).

baryphonic 2y ago

I wonder how this AI interprets customers who express anger and frustration through sarcasm

mbil 2y ago

I feel like this comment will receive some visceral reactions, but I wonder whether similar technology or even LLMs could be used in emergency dispatch in the future. There could be benefits in terms of accuracy, speed, information verification, etc. Not to mention it would spare some 911 operators of PTSD.

drschwabe 2y ago
Not sure about realtime voiceover and not in emergency services myself but having an LLM fed the call audio to generate supplmentary summary of what was discussed could certainly be beneficial in situations where the operator needed clarity or there was a mistaken address or important detail that needed double-checking after the call.

baxtr 2y ago

HN's new AI makes angry commentators' comments sound calm. Wonder how people here would like that.

krapp 2y ago
I think I facetiously suggested that once, that all comments on HN should be run through an AI filter and rewritten for maximum civility, technical correctness and factual accuracy, with the most common branches of conversation being pregenerated to save time. And then eventually the entire forum could be automated, with nothing but an AI crawling the web, posting and commenting. It would be both terrible and hilarious. I still kind of want to see what it would look like.

SoftTalker 2y ago

This is only needed until the AI is good enough to totally replace the human customer service agents. And that probably isn't too far off. The AI won't care if the human on the phone is angry, since it doesn't have emotions. There could be a silver lining. A big part of the reason that it's so hard to talk to a person when you call is that people are very expensive. If the AI is cheap enough, everyone will be able to speak to a "representative" without waiting on hold or navigating a menu. It can just answer immediately and say "how can I help you" and have a conversation. And if the AI is helpful enough, fewer callers will be angry, because their problem is being solved and they aren't spending hours on hold or being asked inane questions from a script. Silver lining for everyone except those employed in call centers, of course.

ordu 2y ago
> The AI won't care if the human on the phone is angry, since it doesn't have emotions. I'd say that AI can care about humans emotions, but the wonderful thing is AI doesn't have to have programmed emotional responses to emotions of others. Theoretically speaking, AI could respond to anger by applying some soothing techniques, like acknowledging emotions and active listening.
- M95D 2y ago
  I would prefer it would solve my problem instead.
thecrash 2y ago
> If the AI is cheap enough, everyone will be able to speak to a "representative" without waiting on hold or navigating a menu. Sometimes people want to "speak to a representative" because they're too lazy to navigate a menu or search, and would prefer to use a natural language interface. AI will definitely help with that. But for most people - especially younger people - our interface desires are not the issue. We prefer navigating a menu interface to having a conversation with anyone - AI or human! We want to "speak to a representative" because the automated interfaces are deliberately designed not to let us do the thing we need to do. The customer service representative is not our servant, they're a guard who holds the keys to the door we need to enter. Will companies give those keys to an LLM? I doubt it. It's certainly possible to trick CSRs, but it's easier (and more automatable) to trick LLMs. Instead, we'll get LLMs which claim to be CSRs but don't actually have any keys, bringing us back to the time-honored demand "I want to speak to a human!"

pton_xd 2y ago

Makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, I think there will be a tipping point where if there's enough hints that what you're saying over the phone is not exactly what the other person is hearing, you will become even more frustrated / angry and will simply stop trusting support calls in general. Humans are too perceptive.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Are there any videos/audio examples of this in action?

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

<pushes AI button> "These aren't the droids you're looking for"

leumon 2y ago

I wonder what would happen if the customer is very happy and having an enjoyable conversation. Would the AI remove the emotions here too, resulting in a completely monotonic voice?

hcarvalhoalves 2y ago

Filtering and distortion of communication. Suits well the age of appearances we live in.

aaron695 2y ago

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joecot 2y ago

> According to the company, the biggest burdens on operators are hearing abusive language and being trapped in long conversations with customers who will not get off the line—such as when making persistent requests for apologies. > Nakatani said, “AI is good at handling complaints and can do so for long hours, but what angry customers want is for a human to apologize to them.” An aside: is this something people really call up call centers for, for an apology? If I'm calling it's because I need something, or something is wrong and I need it fixed. I don't need a random call center person to apologize on behalf of a corporation. I just need my thing resolved.

SenHeng 2y ago

This article lacks context. For the past year or so, the term 'customer harassment' has become a trend in Japan. It's basically customers abusing the overly polite service staff over very minor issues. This AI is introduced to combat this, as there is now a severe staff shortage in Japan due to the reducing population and companies are having trouble enticing younger people into these kinds of jobs. Here's a good article explaining it. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3105/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3105/ > Tokyo saying no to 'customer harassment' > Types of 'customer harassment' > - Targeting individuals as a form of stress relief. > - A distorted sense of justice, in which people express their feelings for a long time as advice. > - Attack type, in which people demand things such as having a person kneel down on the ground. > - Illusion type, in which people think they are passing the responsibility on to others. > - Strong obsession, in which mentally unstable people are obsessed with listening to their own opinions.

staircasebug 2y ago

Sounds like something that can be applied to the call center operator voice as well.