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AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

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Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#201

Post by simianwords »

keybored wrote: post #197
simianwords wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competing against others to come out at the top _is_ useful labor. The best one wins usually and as a consumer you want the best products to come on top.

Maybe this is very Vulgar Marxist but that seems a bit like crediting gangsters competing to shake down construction businesses for building bridges.

That’s not the case at all. Competition is integral to the system working. We have many laws to protect the market so that competition is viable like anti trust etc.

Competition is why you have good products. Can you explain to me what incentivizes Apple to make functional and impressive iPhones instead of selling us barely working phones without cameras?

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#202

Post by kelseyfrog »

simianwords wrote: post #189
kelseyfrog wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inequality rising is a real issue.. it can be tackled but lets first acknowledge that prosperity has increased for pretty much everyone in the world. I literally acknowledged that prosperity has increased for people in other parts of the world. Why don't you rewrite my comment so that it's acceptable to you and then we'll discuss that?

If we acknowledge that everyone is more prosperous now than before (which completely contradicts the post I was responding to) what is your point? Inequality? I think it is a problem but not so much if everyone is getting prosperous in the mean time.

Yes, as I pointed out in my original comment, inequality is my point.

If unaddressed - ie by dismissal - it doesn't go away. It simply festers. It will fester until it ruptures. Ignoring it or minimizing it doesn't make it go away.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#203

Post by keeda »

simianwords wrote: post #135
jmyeet wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many ways to attack this assertion. For example: 1. The stagnation or decline in real wages in the developed world in recent decades; 2. Increasing homelessness as a consequence of the housing affordability crisis; 3. How global poverty has increased in the last century under capitalism. This surprises some because defenders claim the opposite. China is singlehandedly responsible to massive decrease in extr…

Your first and last points are egregiously incorrect. A simple google search will tell you this. Extreme poverty throughout the world has dramatically reduced. In Western Europe it came down from 50% to less than 1% through the 20th century. India brought it down dramatically and is continuing to do it. A simple Wikipedia search can tell you this. Wages has been increasing in china, India as well as USA after account…

> India brought it down dramatically and is continuing to do it. A simple Wikipedia search can tell you this.

What the Wikipedia search won't tell you is that the methodologies and poverty guidelines used in making some of these claims are rather questionable. While real progress has undeniably been made, the extent is greatly exaggerated:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/indian-governme...

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#204

Post by simianwords »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #202
simianwords wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we acknowledge that everyone is more prosperous now than before (which completely contradicts the post I was responding to) what is your point? Inequality? I think it is a problem but not so much if everyone is getting prosperous in the mean time.

Yes, as I pointed out in my original comment, inequality is my point. If unaddressed - ie by dismissal - it doesn't go away. It simply festers. It will fester until it ruptures. Ignoring it or minimizing it doesn't make it go away.

Sure and I think solving inequality must be weighed along with increasing prosperity. Both have to be considered because often increasing one means increasing other - increasing taxes too much and there are no incentives to work and prosperity reduces. We need to find the right balance between both.

I do acknowledge that inequality can have unforeseen consequences and worth talking about and tackling today but only by considering the right tradeoffs.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#205

Post by simianwords »

gls2ro wrote: post #176
simianwords wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think middle men are counted in GDP because GDP only counts final value and not intermediate.

Trying to understand this and please correct me if I am wrong: A is producing something of value 100. That is complex to configure so B comes along and they say: Buy from me at 150 and you will get both the product and the configuration. C comes and say: there are multiple products like this so I created a marketplace where I do some offering that in the end will cost you 160 but you can switch providers whenever you…

This is technically correct but missing some details.

The real GDP after accounting for cost of living has not changed much because while GDP has decreased, cost of living has also decreased (because A is now priced at 104 instead of 160).

But it’s even better because we have this extra money that we previously spent on C. In theory we will spend this extra money somewhere else and drive demand there. The workers put out of employment due to LLM will move to that sector to fulfill it.

Now the GDP not only increased but also cost of living reduced.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#206

Post by d1sxeyes »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #179
d1sxeyes wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree, but I’ve spent the last ten years or so working with outsourced tech support and I guarantee you, a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves.

> a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves if the service offered is "support" then why is a phone call less acceptable than reading documentation?

Exactly. It’s not futile or redundant, it’s something people want.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#207

Post by hereme888 »

pluc wrote: post #78
hereme888 wrote: post #63

AI is already so much better than 99% of customer support employees. It also improves brand reputation by actually paying attention to what customers are saying and responding in a timely manner, with expert-level knowledge, unlike typical customer service reps. I've used LLMs to help me fix Windows issues using pretty advanced methods, that MS employees would have just told me to either re-install Windows or send th…

Except AI support agents are only using content that is already available in support knowledge bases, making the entire exercise futile and redundant. But sure, they're eloquent while wasting your time.

AI has all sorts of technical knowledge, plus massive working memory, and high IQ-ish. It's vastly, vastly superior to most IT support agents.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#208

Post by hereme888 »

pluc wrote: post #112
mava_app wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are AI agents that train from knowledge bases but also keep improving on actual conversations. For example, our Mava bot actually learns from mods directly within Discord servers. So it's not about replacing human mods but assist them so they can take better care of users in the end.

I don't see how this is any different than enriching knowledge bases from feedback and experience. You just find yourself duplicating all the information, locking yourself in your AI vendor and investing in a technology that doesn't add anything to what you had before. It's utterly nonsensical.

You're going to browse through a manual every time you need to fix something in some app in some particular OS version?

I want:

> Respond with terminal command to do X

>> `complex terminal command code block`

> oh we need to run that on all such and such files

>> script.py

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#209

Post by lurking_swe »

ipython wrote: post #173
gruez wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Change their last name? - that would overwhelm our software, let’s have our operator do that after they call in. That doesn't make much sense. Either your system can handle it or it can't. Putting a support agent in front isn't going to change that.

The backend can. But what’s exposed to customers will be a very very small subset of that capability. Hence why only the csrs can perform that function. The business undoubtedly did a crude cost/benefit analysis where the cost to expose and maintain that public interface vastly outstrips the cost for the few people that have to call in and change their name.

OK, so why not have a customer support bot add the “operation description” into a message queue (SQS, Kafka, whatever) if a formal API doesn’t exist for that operation? The csrs can then handle that task async and the customer can get a sms / email when their request is fulfilled? Why force things to be synchronous and irritate the customer?

It’s not exactly a difficult design problem. Unless I’m missing some thing.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#210

Post by kelseyfrog »

simianwords wrote: post #204
kelseyfrog wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as I pointed out in my original comment, inequality is my point. If unaddressed - ie by dismissal - it doesn't go away. It simply festers. It will fester until it ruptures. Ignoring it or minimizing it doesn't make it go away.

Sure and I think solving inequality must be weighed along with increasing prosperity. Both have to be considered because often increasing one means increasing other - increasing taxes too much and there are no incentives to work and prosperity reduces. We need to find the right balance between both. I do acknowledge that inequality can have unforeseen consequences and worth talking about and tackling today but only b…

I'm trying to square these:

> Increasing taxes too much and there are no incentives to work and prosperity reduces.

> Your first mistake is thinking hard work matters.

If hard work doesn't matter, then why care what incentives are?

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