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Except AI support agents are only using content that is already available in support knowledge bases, making the entire exercise futile and redundant. But sure,

by pluc 1y ago

Except AI support agents are only using content that is already available in support knowledge bases, making the entire exercise futile and redundant. But sure, they're eloquent while wasting your time.

scarface_74 1y ago
It’s even worse than you think. I work with Amazon Connect. Now the human agent doesn’t have to search the Knowledge Base manually, likely answers will automatically be shown to the agent based on the conversation that you are having. They are just regurgitating what you can find for yourself. But I can’t imagine ever calling tech support for help unless it is more than troubleshooting and I need them to actually do something in their system or it’s a hardware problem where I need a replacement.
klodolph 1y ago
Most of my questions are answerable from the support knowledge base.
- SpaceManNabs 1y ago
  If i am calling support, it is probably because I already scoured the resources. Over the past 3 years of calling support any service or infrastructure (bank, health insurance, doctor, wtv), over like 90% of my requests were things only solvable via customer support or escalation. I only keep track because I document when I didn't need support into a list of "phone hacks" (like press this sequence of buttons when calling this provider). Most recently, I went to an urgent care facility a few weekends ago, and they keep submitting claims to the arm, of my insurance, that is officed in a different state instead of my proper state.
mava_app 1y ago
There are AI agents that train from knowledge bases but also keep improving on actual conversations. For example, our Mava bot actually learns from mods directly within Discord servers. So it's not about replacing human mods but assist them so they can take better care of users in the end.
- pluc 1y ago
  I don't see how this is any different than enriching knowledge bases from feedback and experience. You just find yourself duplicating all the information, locking yourself in your AI vendor and investing in a technology that doesn't add anything to what you had before. It's utterly nonsensical.
  - hereme888 1y ago
    You're going to browse through a manual every time you need to fix something in some app in some particular OS version? I want: > Respond with terminal command to do X >> `complex terminal command code block` > oh we need to run that on all such and such files >> script.py
    - pluc 1y ago
      > You're going to browse through a manual every time you need to fix something in some app in some particular OS version? Yes, that's literally how you learn things. I can't understand how anyone on this forum thinks otherwise. Hackers are supposed to be people who thrive in unknown contexts, who thirst for knowledge of how things work. What you are suggesting is brain atrophy. It's the death of knowledge for profit and productivity. Fuck all of that.
      - hereme888 1y ago
        My cognitive energies are reserved for other things. This is the point of AI: do boring tasks so humans can spend their energy on loftier/more important things.
        bluefirebrand 1y ago
        If you can't be bothered to do the boring stuff ever, you won't ever develop the skills that you need to make anything loftier They might be boring but they are nonetheless foundational
somenameforme 1y ago
"Only" kind of misses the benefit though. I'm very bearish on "AI", but this is an absolutely perfect use case for LLMs. The issue is that if you describe a problem in natural language on any search engine, your results are going to be garbage unless you randomly luckboxed into somebody asking, with near identical verbiage, the question on some Q&A site. That is because search is still mostly stuck in ~2003. But now ask the exact same thing of an LLM and it will generally be able to provide useful links. There's just so much information out there, but search engines just suck because they lack any sort of meaningful natural language parsing. LLMs provide that.
- another-dave 1y ago
  Speaking of which, could we apply vector embeddings to search engines (where crawled pages get indexed by their vector embeddings rather than raw text) and use that for better fuzzy search results even without an LLM in the mix? (Might be a naïve question, I'm at the edge of my understanding)
  - esafak 1y ago
    Why stop there? The LLM can synthesize the results and spare you the work.
    - another-dave 1y ago
      I'm talking about the scenario the GP referenced — where if you search for say "holiday" but get no results because the pages only use the word "vacation" which AFAIK is still a problem in regular search. LLMs inherently would introduce the possibility of hallucinations, but just using the vectors to match documents wouldn't, right?
      - esafak 1y ago
        No, llms still use similarity search for candidate generation, unless you don't give them any tools.
  - 1y ago
d1sxeyes 1y ago
I would agree, but I’ve spent the last ten years or so working with outsourced tech support and I guarantee you, a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves.
- pluc 1y ago
  Getting instant answers without having to deploy any effort isn't going to make the problem go away, it's going to make us dependent on the solution.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  > a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves if the service offered is "support" then why is a phone call less acceptable than reading documentation?
  - d1sxeyes 1y ago
    Exactly. It’s not futile or redundant, it’s something people want.
hereme888 1y ago
AI has all sorts of technical knowledge, plus massive working memory, and high IQ-ish. It's vastly, vastly superior to most IT support agents.
- kbelder 1y ago
  True, partially, but it's also vastly inferior to most IT support agents at the same time. I love a good AI to help search through large documentation basis for the particular issue I'm experiencing. But it is clear when the problem I am having is outside of the AI's sometimes infantile ability to understand, and I need the ability to bypass it.

by pluc 1y ago

scarface_74 1y ago

It’s even worse than you think. I work with Amazon Connect. Now the human agent doesn’t have to search the Knowledge Base manually, likely answers will automatically be shown to the agent based on the conversation that you are having. They are just regurgitating what you can find for yourself. But I can’t imagine ever calling tech support for help unless it is more than troubleshooting and I need them to actually do something in their system or it’s a hardware problem where I need a replacement.

klodolph 1y ago

Most of my questions are answerable from the support knowledge base.

SpaceManNabs 1y ago
If i am calling support, it is probably because I already scoured the resources. Over the past 3 years of calling support any service or infrastructure (bank, health insurance, doctor, wtv), over like 90% of my requests were things only solvable via customer support or escalation. I only keep track because I document when I didn't need support into a list of "phone hacks" (like press this sequence of buttons when calling this provider). Most recently, I went to an urgent care facility a few weekends ago, and they keep submitting claims to the arm, of my insurance, that is officed in a different state instead of my proper state.

mava_app 1y ago

There are AI agents that train from knowledge bases but also keep improving on actual conversations. For example, our Mava bot actually learns from mods directly within Discord servers. So it's not about replacing human mods but assist them so they can take better care of users in the end.

pluc 1y ago
I don't see how this is any different than enriching knowledge bases from feedback and experience. You just find yourself duplicating all the information, locking yourself in your AI vendor and investing in a technology that doesn't add anything to what you had before. It's utterly nonsensical.
- hereme888 1y ago
  You're going to browse through a manual every time you need to fix something in some app in some particular OS version? I want: > Respond with terminal command to do X >> `complex terminal command code block` > oh we need to run that on all such and such files >> script.py
  - pluc 1y ago
    > You're going to browse through a manual every time you need to fix something in some app in some particular OS version? Yes, that's literally how you learn things. I can't understand how anyone on this forum thinks otherwise. Hackers are supposed to be people who thrive in unknown contexts, who thirst for knowledge of how things work. What you are suggesting is brain atrophy. It's the death of knowledge for profit and productivity. Fuck all of that.
    - hereme888 1y ago
      My cognitive energies are reserved for other things. This is the point of AI: do boring tasks so humans can spend their energy on loftier/more important things.
      - bluefirebrand 1y ago
        If you can't be bothered to do the boring stuff ever, you won't ever develop the skills that you need to make anything loftier They might be boring but they are nonetheless foundational

somenameforme 1y ago

"Only" kind of misses the benefit though. I'm very bearish on "AI", but this is an absolutely perfect use case for LLMs. The issue is that if you describe a problem in natural language on any search engine, your results are going to be garbage unless you randomly luckboxed into somebody asking, with near identical verbiage, the question on some Q&A site. That is because search is still mostly stuck in ~2003. But now ask the exact same thing of an LLM and it will generally be able to provide useful links. There's just so much information out there, but search engines just suck because they lack any sort of meaningful natural language parsing. LLMs provide that.

another-dave 1y ago
Speaking of which, could we apply vector embeddings to search engines (where crawled pages get indexed by their vector embeddings rather than raw text) and use that for better fuzzy search results even without an LLM in the mix? (Might be a naïve question, I'm at the edge of my understanding)
- esafak 1y ago
  Why stop there? The LLM can synthesize the results and spare you the work.
  - another-dave 1y ago
    I'm talking about the scenario the GP referenced — where if you search for say "holiday" but get no results because the pages only use the word "vacation" which AFAIK is still a problem in regular search. LLMs inherently would introduce the possibility of hallucinations, but just using the vectors to match documents wouldn't, right?
    - esafak 1y ago
      No, llms still use similarity search for candidate generation, unless you don't give them any tools.
- 1y ago

d1sxeyes 1y ago

I would agree, but I’ve spent the last ten years or so working with outsourced tech support and I guarantee you, a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves.

pluc 1y ago
Getting instant answers without having to deploy any effort isn't going to make the problem go away, it's going to make us dependent on the solution.
GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
> a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves if the service offered is "support" then why is a phone call less acceptable than reading documentation?
- d1sxeyes 1y ago
  Exactly. It’s not futile or redundant, it’s something people want.

hereme888 1y ago

AI has all sorts of technical knowledge, plus massive working memory, and high IQ-ish. It's vastly, vastly superior to most IT support agents.

kbelder 1y ago
True, partially, but it's also vastly inferior to most IT support agents at the same time. I love a good AI to help search through large documentation basis for the particular issue I'm experiencing. But it is clear when the problem I am having is outside of the AI's sometimes infantile ability to understand, and I need the ability to bypass it.