this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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See: Labyrinthian phone systems where it's nearly impossible to talk to a human.
Don't fret, this year, they're fully removing the humans from the equation.
Literally, customer service is where I expect this to hit first.
Corporations have made clear they've cornered all the markets, and they're not concerned with serving the customer or fixing mistakes anymore. This will absolutely the first rug-pull. Expect to be flung into digital "black holes" when you have an issue because there no longer is a human in the chain to resolve it.
this is already the case, except i can eventually reach a human that doesn't understand english, reading an english script....
at least the AI won't get frustrated and hang up on me.
I can't put the blame on underpaid people in other countries as much as I can't put it on the AI itself. It's the shitty business management practices. I doubt the foreigners doing customer service for the Yanks are happy about being browbeaten and spoken to abusively simply because they don't speak English as a first language. On top of the abuse, they're getting paid pennies compared to US/European customer service agents! They're human, they deserve the same pay, it's disgusting.
It's not the individual laborers fault that the corporate Suits make the rules and make them follow a script and don't allow them to actually help you. They can get fired for deviating from the script or actually helping you.
Corporations are really banking on how an AI will never, ever help you if they don't want it to. They don't have to worry about coaching it or firing it. They can just keep changing the code to fit new scenarios.
whoa, im not blaming impoverished people with poor english from taking customer service jobs... they're doing what they can with what they have...
im saying customer service is already practically a black hole... just instead of an AI that doesn't understand or help with your problem... and regurgitates pieces of a script inappropriately, we already have that right now but with humans.
Customer service is the only part of companies that if they do a good job, the company makes less money instead of more.
I mean, yes and no. If your company is constantly fucking up and constantly having to fix things for customers yeah, but if you're actually providing good service and products to begin with, customer service is more about retaining your existing customer set by keeping them so happy with how you've treated them that they wouldn't consider an alternative. I know we're well beyond the era in history where companies are worried about pesky things like "customer satisfaction" or "long-term profits" but it doesn't mean that classic principles don't apply: companies just stopped giving a shit about them.