5 ms·

I had this experience when I was trying to find an apartment - multiple different buildings very clearly had AI-generated responses. (To all you builders out th

I had this experience when I was trying to find an apartment - multiple different buildings very clearly had AI-generated responses. (To all you builders out there: quick replies are great. Instant replies are suspicious.) I immediately stopped considering them as options. If you can’t be bothered to have a human respond to my email when I’m trying to give you my money, what level of service can I expect once I’m already obligated to pay rent?

blitzar 7mo ago
I get along well with the amazon returns / late delivery bot - I think I prefer it to the humans.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
skeuomorphism 7mo ago
This is more or less the go-to standard in the usa. One property manager handles possibly hundreds in an association, or dozens of townhomes, and will refuse to speak to you directly, except through a maintenance request system. Its incredibly depressing
- Octoth0rpe 7mo ago
  But at least they're passing on all the savings to the renters, right? ....Right???????
- AnotherGoodName 7mo ago
  The electrical panel beeps an alarm constantly. Sent an email to the property management company. Guy comes over and presses a button to silence it for 24 hours. Rinse repeat for months on end. No method of escalation beyond the automatic replying inbox. I’m fine. twitch twitch Welcome to 21st century distopia!
  - Eisenstein 7mo ago
    Whatever that panel is responsible for, that thing isn't working properly, its just set to be silent temporarily. Find out what regulatory body in your town deals with that panel's responsibility, contact them telling them that of the issue and say that you have contacted them when you submit your next ticket.
    - ryandrake 7mo ago
      ...and deal with that regulatory body's automated bot response. Customer service is bots all the way down.
      - jclulow 7mo ago
        I had some serious struggles with the delinquent landlord and property owners, and the dangerously incompetent builders that plagued our building in Alameda for years. While they were not always legally empowered to come and stop the skulduggery, the Alameda city council offices of planning and compliance were the only people who consistently and professionally responded to phone calls and emails and were available if you went to their offices. People complain about public servants, but at least in Alameda they were really good people doing their best.
        idiotsecant 7mo ago
        Generally public sector employees are pretty good. Demonizing them is part of the movement to tear down the machine of state that we spent the last few hundred years building, so that a select few can grab chunks of the burning wreckage on the way down.
        _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
        The Republicans have spent 40 years with their intentional policy being to make government services worse so that the Republicans can then point to that and say 'we need to get rid of government'. It's hard for government to function well when half of it is trying to sabotage itself. The fact it works as good as it does after 40 years of that is a tribute to public servants.
garciasn 7mo ago
I do Rover for extra fun money and I get to watch other peoples dogs when I don’t have one myself right now. Several folks have noted that my immediate reply threw them for loops. One told me she thought it was spam that I responded so quickly. Rover has a “Star Sitter” designation and response time is one of the metrics. Star Sitters show up at the top of the algorithm’s results so I’m incentivized to keep it up. Plus; I absolutely despise waiting forever for others to reply and I want to make sure I get bookings, knowing there are MANY available sitters in my area. I never would have thought it was spammy or suspicious AI behavior. Thank you for cementing it in my mind that maybe I’m a little too eager. Considering I’m entirely booked out until mid-October, I’m either doing something right or people are that desperate for a good human to watch their pup for them.
- Barbing 7mo ago
  Is this suspicious, probably: “ps— hope I hit my goal of responding in <5min like I said in my ad!” (w/biz hours mentioned in ad)
  - vaginaphobic 7mo ago
    [dead]
- resize2996 7mo ago
  I found a good cat-sitter through Rover and would do crime if she made it a condition of her next visit.
bigtunacan 7mo ago
A delayed response doesn’t mean it’s not automated, just that it wasn’t built to not feel automated. I worked on an automated reply system like this previously and we had intentional delays with randomness as well as variance in our responses to make it “feel more human”.
- avidiax 7mo ago
  That's even worse. If it's going to be a bot, at least give the advantages of the bot and be somewhat honest about it.
  - vaginaphobic 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - yetihehe 7mo ago
    > give the advantages of the bot and be somewhat honest about it. The advantage of a bot is for owner of a bot, not for those forced to use that bot. So, owners are incentivized to lie about bot usage.
    - vidarh 7mo ago
      Well, there can be an advantage in a bot too, if it can actually resolve some subset of problems faster and allows for more timely escalation of what is left. The problem is of course that is far too often not how they are used.
      - thesuitonym 7mo ago
        If the bot could resolve my problems, I would have resolved it already on the website.
      - yetihehe 7mo ago
        > The problem is of course that is far too often not how they are used. The underlying problem with today's world is that people only want to solve their problem at the cost of everyone else. Everything else (like bot's, ai) is only a tool which is used on the way to enrich an individual.
EGreg 7mo ago
That goes for all AI generated content If you can’t be bothered to write something to me personally, why should I deal with you? :)
- dspillett 7mo ago
  It's like the Google¹ advert “if your phone can answer your friends text, shouldn't it, instead of them waiting or you”. No, it 'king shouldn't. And if I find they are using automation to talk to me, I'll talk to someone else. Or I'll bot up myself and have my people talk to their people… -------- [1] I think it was one of theirs, could have been one of the Android phone makers that has gone all-in on nagging me to give their bot something to do with itself.
csa 7mo ago
> I immediately stopped considering them as options. If you can’t be bothered to have a human respond to my email when I’m trying to give you my money, what level of service can I expect once I’m already obligated to pay rent? I will go out on a limb and suggest that they are probably happy that you’ve self-selected out of the process. I’m not saying your expectations are unreasonable, but you have higher expectations than most consumers, and that ultimately becomes a pain in their ass.
- gleenn 7mo ago
  I feel like it's not higher than most consumers, if I have a problem that is serious enough then that's the benefit and direct trade-off of renting - it shouldn't be my problem and my landlord should take it seriously. If everyone self-selects out we are just making the rental market even more hostile.
randomNumber7 7mo ago
> If you can’t be bothered to have a human respond to my email when I’m trying to give you my money, what level of service can I expect once I’m already obligated to pay rent? Most people fail to come to a conclusion by induction so they'll find enough customers.
array_key_first 7mo ago
In the past 20 years I've noticed a trend of companies making it harder and harder for me to give them my money. For apartments, when I would look they wouldn't even bother to tour me half the time. I couldn't believe it. I'm trying to give you thousands of dollars a month. In a CONTRACT. And you won't even show me the product I'm buying? One place told me it was dark outside (4pm...), and they didn't feel comfortable touring me around the apartments. Jesus Christ, are we in Gotham? Many just ghosted my touring requests. One turned me down because it was raining (???). I would show up in person in the office, and many would still refuse to tour me.
- jafo1989 7mo ago
  > In the past 20 years I've noticed a trend of companies making it harder and harder for me to give them my money. They want your money, they are just getting stricter on how they will accept it in order to limit liability and meet compliance, and also maximize profitability. Much, much better tools these days to address both of those than there were 20 years ago.
- gwerbin 7mo ago
  > And you won't even show me the product I'm buying? They'd rather rent to someone who is desperate enough to rent without seeing it. It's not that they don't want money, it's that they don't want your money, they want someone more abusable instead.
gzread 7mo ago
I once called a hotel to book a room and the voice AI bot told me that it does not have a room because it is an AI model and does not have a physical location. I booked a different hotel.

blitzar 7mo ago

I get along well with the amazon returns / late delivery bot - I think I prefer it to the humans.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

skeuomorphism 7mo ago

This is more or less the go-to standard in the usa. One property manager handles possibly hundreds in an association, or dozens of townhomes, and will refuse to speak to you directly, except through a maintenance request system. Its incredibly depressing

Octoth0rpe 7mo ago
But at least they're passing on all the savings to the renters, right? ....Right???????
AnotherGoodName 7mo ago
The electrical panel beeps an alarm constantly. Sent an email to the property management company. Guy comes over and presses a button to silence it for 24 hours. Rinse repeat for months on end. No method of escalation beyond the automatic replying inbox. I’m fine. twitch twitch Welcome to 21st century distopia!
- Eisenstein 7mo ago
  Whatever that panel is responsible for, that thing isn't working properly, its just set to be silent temporarily. Find out what regulatory body in your town deals with that panel's responsibility, contact them telling them that of the issue and say that you have contacted them when you submit your next ticket.
  - ryandrake 7mo ago
    ...and deal with that regulatory body's automated bot response. Customer service is bots all the way down.
    - jclulow 7mo ago
      I had some serious struggles with the delinquent landlord and property owners, and the dangerously incompetent builders that plagued our building in Alameda for years. While they were not always legally empowered to come and stop the skulduggery, the Alameda city council offices of planning and compliance were the only people who consistently and professionally responded to phone calls and emails and were available if you went to their offices. People complain about public servants, but at least in Alameda they were really good people doing their best.
      - idiotsecant 7mo ago
        Generally public sector employees are pretty good. Demonizing them is part of the movement to tear down the machine of state that we spent the last few hundred years building, so that a select few can grab chunks of the burning wreckage on the way down.
      - _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
        The Republicans have spent 40 years with their intentional policy being to make government services worse so that the Republicans can then point to that and say 'we need to get rid of government'. It's hard for government to function well when half of it is trying to sabotage itself. The fact it works as good as it does after 40 years of that is a tribute to public servants.

garciasn 7mo ago

I do Rover for extra fun money and I get to watch other peoples dogs when I don’t have one myself right now. Several folks have noted that my immediate reply threw them for loops. One told me she thought it was spam that I responded so quickly. Rover has a “Star Sitter” designation and response time is one of the metrics. Star Sitters show up at the top of the algorithm’s results so I’m incentivized to keep it up. Plus; I absolutely despise waiting forever for others to reply and I want to make sure I get bookings, knowing there are MANY available sitters in my area. I never would have thought it was spammy or suspicious AI behavior. Thank you for cementing it in my mind that maybe I’m a little too eager. Considering I’m entirely booked out until mid-October, I’m either doing something right or people are that desperate for a good human to watch their pup for them.

Barbing 7mo ago
Is this suspicious, probably: “ps— hope I hit my goal of responding in <5min like I said in my ad!” (w/biz hours mentioned in ad)
- vaginaphobic 7mo ago
  [dead]
resize2996 7mo ago
I found a good cat-sitter through Rover and would do crime if she made it a condition of her next visit.

bigtunacan 7mo ago

A delayed response doesn’t mean it’s not automated, just that it wasn’t built to not feel automated. I worked on an automated reply system like this previously and we had intentional delays with randomness as well as variance in our responses to make it “feel more human”.

avidiax 7mo ago
That's even worse. If it's going to be a bot, at least give the advantages of the bot and be somewhat honest about it.
- vaginaphobic 7mo ago
  [dead]
- yetihehe 7mo ago
  > give the advantages of the bot and be somewhat honest about it. The advantage of a bot is for owner of a bot, not for those forced to use that bot. So, owners are incentivized to lie about bot usage.
  - vidarh 7mo ago
    Well, there can be an advantage in a bot too, if it can actually resolve some subset of problems faster and allows for more timely escalation of what is left. The problem is of course that is far too often not how they are used.
    - thesuitonym 7mo ago
      If the bot could resolve my problems, I would have resolved it already on the website.
    - yetihehe 7mo ago
      > The problem is of course that is far too often not how they are used. The underlying problem with today's world is that people only want to solve their problem at the cost of everyone else. Everything else (like bot's, ai) is only a tool which is used on the way to enrich an individual.

EGreg 7mo ago

That goes for all AI generated content If you can’t be bothered to write something to me personally, why should I deal with you? :)

dspillett 7mo ago
It's like the Google¹ advert “if your phone can answer your friends text, shouldn't it, instead of them waiting or you”. No, it 'king shouldn't. And if I find they are using automation to talk to me, I'll talk to someone else. Or I'll bot up myself and have my people talk to their people… -------- [1] I think it was one of theirs, could have been one of the Android phone makers that has gone all-in on nagging me to give their bot something to do with itself.

csa 7mo ago

> I immediately stopped considering them as options. If you can’t be bothered to have a human respond to my email when I’m trying to give you my money, what level of service can I expect once I’m already obligated to pay rent? I will go out on a limb and suggest that they are probably happy that you’ve self-selected out of the process. I’m not saying your expectations are unreasonable, but you have higher expectations than most consumers, and that ultimately becomes a pain in their ass.

gleenn 7mo ago
I feel like it's not higher than most consumers, if I have a problem that is serious enough then that's the benefit and direct trade-off of renting - it shouldn't be my problem and my landlord should take it seriously. If everyone self-selects out we are just making the rental market even more hostile.

randomNumber7 7mo ago

> If you can’t be bothered to have a human respond to my email when I’m trying to give you my money, what level of service can I expect once I’m already obligated to pay rent? Most people fail to come to a conclusion by induction so they'll find enough customers.

array_key_first 7mo ago

In the past 20 years I've noticed a trend of companies making it harder and harder for me to give them my money. For apartments, when I would look they wouldn't even bother to tour me half the time. I couldn't believe it. I'm trying to give you thousands of dollars a month. In a CONTRACT. And you won't even show me the product I'm buying? One place told me it was dark outside (4pm...), and they didn't feel comfortable touring me around the apartments. Jesus Christ, are we in Gotham? Many just ghosted my touring requests. One turned me down because it was raining (???). I would show up in person in the office, and many would still refuse to tour me.

jafo1989 7mo ago
> In the past 20 years I've noticed a trend of companies making it harder and harder for me to give them my money. They want your money, they are just getting stricter on how they will accept it in order to limit liability and meet compliance, and also maximize profitability. Much, much better tools these days to address both of those than there were 20 years ago.
gwerbin 7mo ago
> And you won't even show me the product I'm buying? They'd rather rent to someone who is desperate enough to rent without seeing it. It's not that they don't want money, it's that they don't want your money, they want someone more abusable instead.

gzread 7mo ago

I once called a hotel to book a room and the voice AI bot told me that it does not have a room because it is an AI model and does not have a physical location. I booked a different hotel.