If you work with AI, it's on you to refuse those jobs.
The people labeling data for $15/h are supposed to take the stand?
No, the people building the shite customer service chatbots that we all hate using should take a stand.
Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
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Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#12There's been a pretty steady trend towards automation, chatbots, self-service, etc. replacing getting an empowered human on the line. Given labor costs and labor shortages, expect even more. Had an airline thing that the website (and app) wouldn't let me complete online. Spent ages on hold but then was able to get hold of their premium account number and was fixed right away. (Of course, would actually have preferred…
FYI, I am actively avoiding any service that makes it hard for me to talk to a human. I don’t think I am the only one.
Unless you're wealthy enough to delegate it to an assistant, I'm sure that's really hard for anything that doesn't involve going to a local store or service. (Or, again, personal advisors of various types but again we're talking lots of money involved.)
ADDED: And the fact that going through online travel/hotel/airline sites is mostly easier (and cheaper) than dealing with most travel agents used to be. Until something goes wrong and you can't walk into your travel agent's office.
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#13There's been a pretty steady trend towards automation, chatbots, self-service, etc. replacing getting an empowered human on the line. Given labor costs and labor shortages, expect even more. Had an airline thing that the website (and app) wouldn't let me complete online. Spent ages on hold but then was able to get hold of their premium account number and was fixed right away. (Of course, would actually have preferred…
I recently got only FAQs and phone tree leading to automated messages for customer support for Legoland. For a large enough business angering a fraction of a percent of your customers is worth it compared to shelling out for actual customer support.
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#14Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Have you ever sat in a customer service chat with someone who wasn't very helpful and very slow sat the same time? There were probably handling several other chats at the same time. Why shouldn't we replace those interactions with an AI that is fast and infinitely patient and friendly? I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but I don't see how fighting technological progress that is net positive for almost ever…
Because up to this point my experience with automated systems in banks, phone companies and web services companies has been awful even for trivial requests. Until shit improves, I will be bashing on those and prefer companies that allow me to get human interaction asap.
Agreed. And chatbots also leave no room for discretionary exemptions. My headset microphone broke recently (after the warranty period) - emailing the company and asking if there was any way I could buy a new one netted me a free replacement and a nice note from a real person. I’m 100% convinced that a chatbot would have told me that based on the serial number my headset was out of warranty and ended the chat.
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#16If you work with AI, it's on you to refuse those jobs.
Fuck off. Automation is the only thing that increases real wealth over the long term.
All jobs should be done by machines.
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#17I'm just wondering when is OpenAI going to jack up their prices once vendor lock-in reaches some critical mass.
Every other company with a GPU farm is getting into the LLM space. There will be plenty of competition keeping prices low.
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#18If you work with AI, it's on you to refuse those jobs.
No it's not. Everyone has obligations. You cannot un-invent this stuff. That's like trying to stop air planes, rockets, photography, combustion engine, calculators, the personal pc, etc. It's the next phase of technology and it will be developed regardless if you like it or not. It's here to stay and thinking otherwise does everyone a disservice. We should be trying to figure out how to leverage this and ride the next wave.
Honestly, this might even make support much easier to interact with. If you can filter this stuff you could probably have a much better support experience. ChatGPT has proved this to be true. I cannot tell you how many times I've used support and the person is some entry level tech who has no idea.
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#19If you work with AI, it's on you to refuse those jobs.
Why? Have you ever sat in a customer service chat with someone who wasn't very helpful and very slow sat the same time? There were probably handling several other chats at the same time. Why shouldn't we replace those interactions with an AI that is fast and infinitely patient and friendly? I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but I don't see how fighting technological progress that is net positive for almost ever…
I'm curious to see how empowered the LLM customer service of the future is. Are they going to be allowed to process refunds? People will find out how to convince the LLM you do meet the requirements for a refund.
And if you check the requirements using something deterministic (last order was within last 2 weeks, customer has a high loyalty points score, they're subscribed to some premium service) then why do you need an agent at all? The real point of the agent when it comes to something like that is reducing churn by making the process harder. The LLM isn't working for you, just like the human agent isn't working for you.
I do think this sort of thing could be good for digging up information though, as technical support before you get to a technician, could be good. Probably less aggravating than "Before we connect you, please turn on and off the rout-... you pressed 1, that is an invalid option. Before we connect you, please turn..."
Re: Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
FYI, I am actively avoiding any service that makes it hard for me to talk to a human. I don’t think I am the only one.
Unless you're wealthy enough to delegate it to an assistant, I'm sure that's really hard for anything that doesn't involve going to a local store or service. (Or, again, personal advisors of various types but again we're talking lots of money involved.) ADDED: And the fact that going through online travel/hotel/airline sites is mostly easier (and cheaper) than dealing with most travel agents used to be. Until somethi…
> that's really hard for anything that doesn't involve going to a local store or service.
Is that such a bad thing?
FWIW it used to be that you could pick up the phone, dial '0', and talk to an operator, a real human being with significant power over the system they operated.
When the phone companies got rid of human operators: that was the beginning of the end of ...something?