To describe the essence—between 2021-01 and 2024-07 AI companies had invented the car and then decided that the only way to use the car was driving backwards and forwards the same single road. AI-wise, IE only tangential to the post, chatbots EG ChatGPT will not be the future because as primitive tools they require human participation beyond the initial instructions. Once they widely begin to ask, as Minsky would, what about road networks, we will see the actual revolution in autonomous capability. I would bet my money that at least the U.S. already is running weak AGI 24/7 to produce malware exploits that is then tested in virtual machines—programmers then only needing to verify cryptographic correctness, obfuscate, and inject it to foreign infastructure.
If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
181–190 of 200 posts
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#182The general trend of insulating the human customer away from human customer service is just a horrible thing that keeps spreading. It was bad enough outsourcing customer support to overseas agents who have their hands tied to only read from a script and generally do nothing, and now we're just talking to computers that can generally do nothing. The message is the same: we don't actually care about our customers. I ow…
I think your opinion stems from never having dealt with normal people interfacing with a technical product . They're not asking the same questions you or I might, they're asking documented questions and they're doing it in obscene volume, with such little ability to help themselves. ISPs probably take the cup for worst ratio of technical issues to technical idiots. It's not just a modem, there's a line, an internal n…
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Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The general trend of insulating the human customer away from human customer service is just a horrible thing that keeps spreading. A law is being debated in my EU country where companies can't put customers on hold more than 10 minutes before reaching an actual human for support. I hope it passes and that it spreads across the union and also applies to tech companies as well.
Already feels like they can work around that by having the "Don't wait on hold, we'll call you back when an agent is ready" feature.
> Already feels like they can work around that by having the "Don't wait on hold, we'll call you back when an agent is ready" feature.
I tried this recently with an airline (AA). The next callback time was like 10 hours later. A bit crazy but ok I took it.
When the time came I get a call. From an agent? Nope. From the same automated system which cheerfully announced this was my callback, now please wait for the next available agent! After being on hold for 10+ minutes I gave up.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#184The general trend of insulating the human customer away from human customer service is just a horrible thing that keeps spreading. It was bad enough outsourcing customer support to overseas agents who have their hands tied to only read from a script and generally do nothing, and now we're just talking to computers that can generally do nothing. The message is the same: we don't actually care about our customers. I ow…
> providing customer support on a massive scale is hard
This is a silly myth that these providers want to use as an excuse.
Support has a lot of economy of scale so providing support to a huge user base is a lot cheaper per user than doing so if you only have a few customers.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was the message I sent to the support agent after the chatbot finally got out of the way.
Can you elaborate on why you refer to this as an AI chatbot?
Because the industry currently refers to machine learning as AI, so rather than fight that battle, I classify decision tree ML as AI since it's pretty closely related to LLMs and other 'AI' things that suddenly converted from ML to AI once enough money was pumped in.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#186Soooo what was the problem with your internet?
Still waiting to find out. Luckily last night I was able to get support to send out a service tech today.
Tech came by... apparently my plan had been reduced to 6 Mbps 'U-verse' this month. Checking my account emails there was no notification of a service downgrade. I'm on autopay, and I did receive an email last month saying the monthly bill would increase by $5—but no indication anything was required on my end.
I was last billed on 6/17, and my next bill is due 7/17. The service tech said he's seen this happen before, and it is likely related to AT&T's backend billing system being a mashup between four different systems across three continents.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Customers are generally not willing to pay for trained cs reps that could actually be helpful. Has any business actually tried?
Average people would switch to a $10/month service instead of $12/month. For internet, mobile plans, people in all sorts of circles brag about what a deal they were able to get with a service provider by haggling. Even when it's a $2 monthly difference. They are proud about their negotiation skills and how they pitted the service providers against each other to make the lowest bid. Maybe once after they have received…
> customer support would cost far, far more than that
That's not at all a given. Taking the example of $2 more per month, if the average customer needs a support call every two years, they could spend a whole hour on the phone with a support agent making $30/hr and the company is still ahead since they charged an extra $48 over those two years.
An realistically most support calls don't last an hour. Fifteen minutes maybe.
That's why I use Sonic for my ISP for example. I've only used support a few times in over ten years, but when I do, I want to talk to someone who knows what an IP packet is and what Linux is, not someone who just reads from a script telling me to find the start menu and click reboot.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
AT&T's consumer wireline business had 4.9% margins in 2023. https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR-V2/financia...
AT&T is not making $60 off a $1,200 line. Their costs are mostly per line after all and so their cheaper offerings bring down their margins a lot.
Their consumer wireline business is mostly regulated and has strict margin caps.
Do you have a source that contradicts the number I provided? Because AT&T is getting wrecked right now by every publicly available number which contradicts both the spirit of your comment and explains why they might cut costs for customer support.
Their business wire line just wrote down nearly half of their previous year numbers.
By no metric I know of does AT&T have a high margin business
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Your desire to handle that all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language meat-bags is lovely but you'd be bankrupt in a week. This sentiment is, in essence, the problem. It's perfectly logical for this trend of distancing customers from their , as you put it, "all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language-meat-bags" when you start with the core concept that the _only_ purpos…
> when you start with the core concept that the _only_ purpose of a company is to earn capital. ...Yes? That's literally what a corporation is for. That some might have good customer service is simply a marketing method to get people to continue using that company to, in the end, earn capital. If you want to run a service whose primary motive is not earning capital, create a non profit.
No, it's not, or at least, it doesn't have to be, and it wasn't always. It's amazing how our modern society has so completely lionized and internalized greed.
Maybe the core concept of a corporation could be, for example:
- to make an excellent product in a sustainable manner,
- to provide gainful employment,
- to steward a natural resource,
- to push the boundaries of human knowledge,
- to organize a portion of society,
- etc.
I'm sure I could go on, this is literally 3 minutes of thought so far.
All of these could be pursued as the primary purpose of the corporation, with a goal of doing so profitably as a secondary concern. None of these are fundamentally incompatible with seeking profits. And in fact, in the past, as part of incorporation, you had to create a charter: what was the purpose of your corporation? That's actually still part of the prices if you go to register a business, though I don't know how meaningful it is anymore. Even the doctrine that corporations be managed "for the benefit of the shareholders," does not necessarily imply a focus on earning capital above all else.
But when the idea that profits are the sole and highest aim of a business, then yes, a lot of very good things get lost along the way.
This is already s long comment, so I'll stop here. I'm not convinced that the way we've chosen in 2024 to conceptualize corporations, even capitalism, is the only way. I think this statement:
> [Earning capital is] literally what a corporation is for
is a value judgement, not a natural definition.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Your desire to handle that all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language meat-bags is lovely but you'd be bankrupt in a week. This sentiment is, in essence, the problem. It's perfectly logical for this trend of distancing customers from their , as you put it, "all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language-meat-bags" when you start with the core concept that the _only_ purpos…
Look at the profit margin for some given company. And you need to look at the profit , not the revenue they get from you. Many of the companies you are asking to provide service are making a buck or two a month from you, even if you are nominally paying hundreds of dollars. So if you call up a real human, you can be draining away months, years, even the entire profit margin you will ever be worth, pretty quickly. Esp…
I think ISPs are actually a great counter-example to your point. The major ISPs are not dominant because they are the only ones able to stay profitable given the tight margins.
There are several examples of local, for profit, ISPs that are about to provide a better service, at a lower cost, and with better customer service. The major ISPs have not responded to this by truly outcompeting these challengers, but by weaponizing the legal system to shut these competitors down.
So, while I agree that "a company can not survive if expenses exceed income", I disagree with your premise that you cannot provide decent customer service within the profit margins of these businesses.