Well, it's hard to see who else could be?
Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
101–110 of 434 posts
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#102Companies should be responsible for the information they give customers, regardless of how they do it. "Give me a real human" is usually what I say when it seems like I'm talking to a bot. Unfortunately, there have been times when I later discovered that the "bot" was actually a real human that was just acting like a bot! While AI may seem to be improving, I always keep in mind the possibility that the opposite is al…
>if you don't want your job replaced by a bot, perhaps you should not be acting like one. Call center folks, especially the first couple of layers of them, are on scripts. They have decision trees and what to say written down. Bots can be much more dynamic than them. It's a pretty terrible job unless you're fairly uniquely predisposed to liking that kind of work.
This case is an interesting example where the LLM is _worse_ than that; it's not on rails in the same way a front-line call-centre worker would be, so can make stuff up with impunity. This would never have happened with a conventional scripted hotline; at worst it could only have happened if the caller was escalated to someone with the authority to make stuff up, but for a simple question like this they wouldn't have been.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#103Air Canada has always been like this. They were notorious amongst the stranded-abroad community during COVID for selling tickets on flights they weren't operating and had no intention to operate, then refusing to refund, except with credits that also expired before they intended to operate. Scammers from top to bottom.
Canada is a good democracy. As your parliament to split Air Canada into multiple carriers or reduce any state-provided advantages to allow better competitors to emerge.
> Canada is a good democracy
Didn't they freeze hundreds of people's bank accounts, with no due process, for peaceful political demonstrations? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385
No better than Nigeria: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/11/nigeria-finally-unfreeze...
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#104Air Canada has always been like this. They were notorious amongst the stranded-abroad community during COVID for selling tickets on flights they weren't operating and had no intention to operate, then refusing to refund, except with credits that also expired before they intended to operate. Scammers from top to bottom.
Sounds like Qantas, who sold thousands of tickets on flights they knew were never going to operate.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#105I just want to give a shoutout to BC's Civil Resolution Tribunal. They take their job seriously, and make it as easy as possible for plaintiff to submit a complaint. I once had the misfortune of generating a batch of defective enterprise-grade SSD from a S company. That S company requires all RMA to go through the sales channel you bought the SSD from, but the sales company we used was out of business. S has refused…
Hmm, browsing through some of those cases, I'm starting to notice a pattern of Air Canada not taking these tribunal proceedings entirely seriously. From this case: > I find that if Air Canada wanted to a raise a contractual defense, it needed to provide the relevant portions of the contract. It did not, so it has not proven a contractual defence. [...] > In its boilerplate Dispute Response, Air Canada denies “each an…
In the case at hand, it sounds like they decided they wouldn't spend over $800 to avoid losing another $800. Which is reasonable, I suppose.
(But another constraint of the CRT is that you can't bring representation -- so while it was an Air Canada employee involved, it wasn't their legal team.)
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, browsing through some of those cases, I'm starting to notice a pattern of Air Canada not taking these tribunal proceedings entirely seriously. From this case: > I find that if Air Canada wanted to a raise a contractual defense, it needed to provide the relevant portions of the contract. It did not, so it has not proven a contractual defence. [...] > In its boilerplate Dispute Response, Air Canada denies “each an…
I see a lot of stuff like that in civil litigation in David v. Goliath situations. Usually the large entity puts in little effort and relies on the fact that its (much more expensive) lawyers generally have more sway with the court (judge), are more persuasive even when their arguments are nonsense, and can just drag cases on for years until the smaller party is burned out.
One nice touch about BC's CRT is that neither side is allowed to be represented by lawyers without specific approval by the tribunal.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where are comparable locations half as expensive in the US? I agree that Canadian salaries trend much lower.
"Comparable locations" is very subjective, but Vancouver vs Denver is one I've heard of that seemed convincing to me. Then again, I've never been to Denver.
Those cities are not remotely comparable. Vancouver and Seattle are a much better comparison. From a cursory search an average home in Vancouver is $CAD 1.1 mil and an average home in Seattle is $USD 800k. So once you take into account exchange rate they are actually fairly similar.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Granted, I’m an American and I’ve had a couple glasses of wine tonight, but I’ve read this comment like 8 times and it still makes no sense to me.
The currency is worth 30% of a U.S. dollar but the cost of living is also significantly lower, so to a person living in either country $600 feels like about the same amount of money.
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Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
When we were purchasing a clothes washer and dryer, Samsung had a special promotion. The sales rep at the store told us that the Samsung machines got the most complaints and she would recommend the LG machines. But we wanted that promotion, it was oh so nice. We bought a 5-year warranty just in case. Sure enough, it's year 3 and the washer has stopped working. Repair guy came and decided he needs to order new parts t…
The long-term brand you want is Miele. They're not cheap but my parents' dishwasher is approaching 30 years old.
Without knowing anything particular about Miele, all this anecdote suggests is that they were great thirty years ago. They could well have enshittified between now and then.
I'm at the point where I don't trust any brands at all anymore. The next time I need to make a major appliance purchase I'll buy a subscription to Consumer Reports and blindly follow their recommendation - I still trust them.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The long-term brand you want is Miele. They're not cheap but my parents' dishwasher is approaching 30 years old.
Without knowing anything particular about Miele, all this anecdote suggests is that they were great thirty years ago . They could well have enshittified between now and then. I'm at the point where I don't trust any brands at all anymore. The next time I need to make a major appliance purchase I'll buy a subscription to Consumer Reports and blindly follow their recommendation - I still trust them.
But isnt that the crux of the matter? You buy what consumer reports say, and the reviewers have no way of knowing if it will break down in 3 years. No one rates their gadget after three years so we have a massive blind spot where the best thing is still word of mouth.
My parents bought an Miele washing machine, rock solid even after pushing ten years.