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Incredibly impressive on a technical level. The Carter avatar seems to swallow nervously a lot (LOL), and there's some weirdness with the mouth/teeth, but it's

Incredibly impressive on a technical level. The Carter avatar seems to swallow nervously a lot (LOL), and there's some weirdness with the mouth/teeth, but it's quite responsive. I've seen more lag on Zoom talking to people with bad wifi. Honestly this is the future of call centers. On the surface it might seem like the video/avatar is unnecessary, and that what really matters is the speech-to-speech loop. But once the avatar is expressive enough, I bet the CSAT would be higher for video calls than voice-only.

nick3443 2y ago
Actually what really matters for a call center is having the problem I called in for resolved promptly.
- turnsout 2y ago
  Right, so do you want to wait 45 minutes for a human, or get it resolved via AI in 2 minutes?
  - causal 2y ago
    This presumes the AI has the same level of problem-solving agency of a real human, which I think is really asking for AGI. Until then I expect AI chatbots will mostly succeed at portraying care and gaslighting customers without actually finding solutions.
    - 0xedd 2y ago
      [dead]
    - turnsout 2y ago
      Yeah, could be. Most of the time when I contact customer service, there is no problem-solving necessary, and very little agency demonstrated. But I know call centers get a lot of complicated technical or billing questions that would be tough.
      - 6510 2y ago
        They work with different tiers usually? The first does the easy questions and they can write down the issue. If something happens regularly you can write a calling script for it. The question is if the ai can find the right script fast enough. Helping the customer is not really the goal. They provide feedback that gives valuable insight into the dysfunctional part of the company so that things can improve. Maybe even generate an investor report from it.
    - aniviacat 2y ago
      That really depends on the type of call center we're talking about. Many (most?) call centers won't do much more than telling you to turn it off and on again, even when you're talking to a real person. (And for many cutomers, that is really all they need.)
      - squarefoot 2y ago
        And AI operators in those call centers wouldn't even need to be better than humans, just cheaper. Not just for saving on human hiring: no building rent, no insurance, no this and that; everything would live within a cluster somewhere.
- tomp 2y ago
  I don't understand why call centers exist in the first place. If you just exposed all the functionality as buttons on the website, or even as AI, I'd be able to fix the problems myself! And I say that while working for a company making call centre AIs... double ironic!
- gh2k 2y ago
  Agreed. I've been frustrated by the proliferation in AI with technical support. Sometimes it's can't answer a question but thinks it can, so we go round and round in circles. A couple have had a low threshold for "this didn't solve my answer" and directed me to a human, but others are impossible to escape. On the other hand, I've had more success with a problem actually getting resolved by a chatbot without speaking to someone more recently... But not a lot more. Ususally I think that because I skew technical and treat Support as a last resort, I've tried everything it wants to suggest.
myprotegeai 2y ago
>Honestly this is the future of call centers. This feels like retro futurism, where we take old ideas and apply a futuristic twist. It feels much more likely that call centers will cease to be relevant, before this tech is ever integrated into them.
- turnsout 2y ago
  Tell that to my mom
  - myprotegeai 2y ago
    Not to be macabre, but how old is your mom?

nick3443 2y ago

Actually what really matters for a call center is having the problem I called in for resolved promptly.

turnsout 2y ago
Right, so do you want to wait 45 minutes for a human, or get it resolved via AI in 2 minutes?
- causal 2y ago
  This presumes the AI has the same level of problem-solving agency of a real human, which I think is really asking for AGI. Until then I expect AI chatbots will mostly succeed at portraying care and gaslighting customers without actually finding solutions.
  - 0xedd 2y ago
    [dead]
  - turnsout 2y ago
    Yeah, could be. Most of the time when I contact customer service, there is no problem-solving necessary, and very little agency demonstrated. But I know call centers get a lot of complicated technical or billing questions that would be tough.
    - 6510 2y ago
      They work with different tiers usually? The first does the easy questions and they can write down the issue. If something happens regularly you can write a calling script for it. The question is if the ai can find the right script fast enough. Helping the customer is not really the goal. They provide feedback that gives valuable insight into the dysfunctional part of the company so that things can improve. Maybe even generate an investor report from it.
  - aniviacat 2y ago
    That really depends on the type of call center we're talking about. Many (most?) call centers won't do much more than telling you to turn it off and on again, even when you're talking to a real person. (And for many cutomers, that is really all they need.)
    - squarefoot 2y ago
      And AI operators in those call centers wouldn't even need to be better than humans, just cheaper. Not just for saving on human hiring: no building rent, no insurance, no this and that; everything would live within a cluster somewhere.
tomp 2y ago
I don't understand why call centers exist in the first place. If you just exposed all the functionality as buttons on the website, or even as AI, I'd be able to fix the problems myself! And I say that while working for a company making call centre AIs... double ironic!
gh2k 2y ago
Agreed. I've been frustrated by the proliferation in AI with technical support. Sometimes it's can't answer a question but thinks it can, so we go round and round in circles. A couple have had a low threshold for "this didn't solve my answer" and directed me to a human, but others are impossible to escape. On the other hand, I've had more success with a problem actually getting resolved by a chatbot without speaking to someone more recently... But not a lot more. Ususally I think that because I skew technical and treat Support as a last resort, I've tried everything it wants to suggest.

myprotegeai 2y ago

>Honestly this is the future of call centers. This feels like retro futurism, where we take old ideas and apply a futuristic twist. It feels much more likely that call centers will cease to be relevant, before this tech is ever integrated into them.

turnsout 2y ago
Tell that to my mom
- myprotegeai 2y ago
  Not to be macabre, but how old is your mom?