Went to get some laundry services and called the number. I was leery as I am in Toronto area and number was Nova Scotia.
A male sounding person answered and I started posing questions about laundry services they offered. This guy was the politest person I had heard in over a decade. Concise but vague. I thought it was VOIP delay as there was a 3-5 second pause for him to reply but realized that it was too consistent. It was a fucking AI attendant talking at me. I said stick your AI, I will not be using your services and hung up.
Grrrrr me want human.
Inversely; How comfortable would you be in a society where you couldn’t access another human if you couldn’t afford one? Because that’s where prioritizing profit over people is going to lead us.
When I’m on the phone with a real human being in customer service, I’m often actually talking to an egregore of the company. They’re reading scripts (written by AI?), being scored by an AI that’s listening in to the recorded conversation, and responding in ways that the conversation tree tells them to respond. Even in the call center jobs that aren’t so managed, there’s really only so far someone can go off script. So while I definitely want more genuine human interaction in the world, I dunno if this is the hill to fight on. All that said, we’re definitely headed for the cyberpunk future, cause everything’s run by a buncha gonks.
Totally. But that’s not what I’m saying. Just to recap.
Buddy said AI/automation/clankas/gonks save money so if we want humans to provide us services we need to be willing to pay more. I posited that money being a barrier to human interaction is probably not a good endgame.
When I had my first ever surgery, I got wheeled into an operating room full of strangers operating who all introduce themselves and participated in making me feel safe and calm. If it weren’t for them, I’d have 100% freaked the fuck out.
Now I’m okay with robot surgeons and dentist doing what they’re programmed to do… but I don’t fucking trust them. I would only accept that kind of treatment if there a human in control of that situation.
That’s where my mind goes when I imagine a world where human provided service is paywalled.
I’d argue we’re already there in many aspects of our society.
I would fully agree. But it could still get worse.
I would fully agree but you all couldn’t afford my input.
That was one of my main thoughts against. Profits over people. I don’t want a dime of my money going to AI run companies if I can give it to a human. So far AI has not proliferated to the point where I cannot get a specific service via human. I am also sure that time will come. Since I am old I hope I die before that happens.