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Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

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Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#391

Post by npongratz »

throw4847285 wrote: post #366
beej71 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me that I have to write my dentist. They replaced their beep answering machine with an AI chatbot, and the experience is horrible. I just want to say what I want, have it transcribed to text, and then have a human do something about it. It. I don't want to have to slowly explain to a bot who is just going to do the same thing. Plus, the first time you encounter it, it doesn't identify itself as a bot for…

Same thing happened to me at my dentist! Infuriating! I suspect someone is selling these to dentists in particular. Dentists have cash to burn on these kinds of solutions, I guess.

I suspect it's more accurate to say the private equity that bought out dental practices everywhere have the cash to burn. At least for now.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#393

Post by abustamam »

I think what a lot of tech people don't understand is how little most people care about technology. People want products that work well. If you can find a solution that serves people's needs then they don't really care about the underlying technology.

For example, apart from my day job, I do IT consulting for small local businesses. I do anything from landing pages to AI integration into their existing processes to make them more efficient at their work. The end result is their customers getting faster and better quality service, and my customers get to focus more on their business instead of administration. They don't really care that it's AI, but they do care about the results.

And I think that's the part many executives are missing. Focus on building great products. If AI is part of it, cool. But unless you're OpenAI or Anthropic, AI is probably not your product.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#394

Post by georgemcbay »

dylan604 wrote: post #325
victor106 wrote: post #314

>No customer or user wakes up and says, ‘I hope I get to talk to a chat bot or an AI agent today This is so true. I led the implementation of an AI customer service agent and even though management thinks it’s a great success the metrics tell a totally different story. Our customers hated it. I haven’t seen anything in tech that is hated more. Before you think we did a bad job with our solution, I can tell you we wen…

The ever dreaded automated phone systems are more tolerable than the AI driven phone systems. The press 1 for... never tried to make you think someone was actually listening to you, yet the AI services are made to come across like you are talking to a human. Don't try to make people think it's a human.

> Don't try to make people think it's a human.

Agreed.

A local pizza place (Tribute Pizza) switched its phone over to an AI assistant that goes out of its way to appear human to such a degree that it inserts random "restaurant bustle" sound effects into the call so it sounds like you're talking to someone standing in a crowded restaurant.

The subterfuge of layering in sound effects to make idiots think they were still talking to a human was a bridge too far and I swore off ever giving my business to them again.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#395

Post by S_Bear »

victor106 wrote: post #314

>No customer or user wakes up and says, ‘I hope I get to talk to a chat bot or an AI agent today This is so true. I led the implementation of an AI customer service agent and even though management thinks it’s a great success the metrics tell a totally different story. Our customers hated it. I haven’t seen anything in tech that is hated more. Before you think we did a bad job with our solution, I can tell you we wen…

I was helping an 80+ year old with a phone problem this week. Dealing with the AI CSA was so frustrating. I don't think this lady was ready to burn down data centers that morning, but I think she was looking for a pitchfork by the afternoon.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#396

Post by coffeefirst »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #338
gambiting wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like how these automated call handlers that say "Just tell us what you need help with" and then no matter how you phrase the sentence it just doesn't understand what you mean. Great idea in theory, horrendous execution. Bonus points if it automatically disconnects after 3 attempts without finding the right magic word from its dictionary of options.

The answer I always give to "tell us what you need help with" is "representative" or "speak to a human". I despise the automated systems that respond to that with "before we can route you to a human, we need to know what you're calling about". Fortunately, some of those will take the continued statement of "representative" as a sign that they should give up and give you a human to talk to. Not all of them, though.

Some of them will also give up and escalate if you do a good enough Rahm Emanuel impression.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#397

Post by rglover »

Turns out people hate the thing they're being told is going to steal their life from them (often with a shit eating grin).

This is what happens when you run dark strategies. They might work for a little bit in small doses, but eventually they bite you in the ass.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#398

Post by 8note »

willchis wrote: post #380
victor106 wrote: post #314

>No customer or user wakes up and says, ‘I hope I get to talk to a chat bot or an AI agent today This is so true. I led the implementation of an AI customer service agent and even though management thinks it’s a great success the metrics tell a totally different story. Our customers hated it. I haven’t seen anything in tech that is hated more. Before you think we did a bad job with our solution, I can tell you we wen…

I really want to agree and I can fill the rage building inside me when I talk to one... but on the flip side I just had a conversation with the Amazon one and it fixed my weird incorrect region/country problem in about 5 minutes. I was filled with rage the entire time, but it fixed my problem.

it really depends on if it can do useful actions, and both you and the company can reasonably trust that it will actually do the right thing

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#400

Post by nonethewiser »

ardacinar wrote: post #209
nonethewiser wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh kind of. What you say is definitely true of some products but it's funny, because the EXACT same criticisms were levied against machine learning. - "ML is such a buzzword. Everyone is trying to shoe-horn it into their product." - "Why are they putting 'machine learning' in their hero section? Just do the thing well. ML is an implementation detail." - "You dont even need ML for this. Simple linear regression woul…

Citation needed. Machine Learning was NOWHERE NEAR as overused as AI in user-facing communication. The last one is a traditional nerd criticism though, it has been present on HN for the last ~20 years. Kind of ignorable.

You missed my claim:

> Machine Learning was NOWHERE NEAR as overused as AI in user-facing communication.

I never said it was as overused. I said we levied the same criticisms (buzz word, implementation detail, bad fit)

Im surprised people dont remember this. Here are some examples:

- Blind post from 2018 stating machine learning is a buzz word with lots of agreement: https://www.teamblind.com/post/is-machine-learning-bullshit-...

- Tech crunch article from 2020 calling machine learning a buzz word and noting how its advertised prominently: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/25/when-that-ai-company-isnt-...

- Substack article from 2017 challenging tech companies on if they really need ML: https://makecents.substack.com/p/https-medium-com-medhaa-att...

- Article saying 90% of machine learning is just "linear regression in a trench coat" but people are labeling it ML for marketing purposes: https://www.eigenmagic.com/2022/03/22/linear-regression-is-b...

- More blind posts saying ML is overhyped: https://www.teamblind.com/post/is-ml-a-hype-gxtuchm0, https://www.teamblind.com/post/is-machine-learning-overhyped..., https://www.teamblind.com/post/when-will-this-ai-hype-die-8z...

- hackernews thread for article and comments claiming its overhyped, over-applied etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27149532

Note that I am NOT arguing ML is useless. It's not useless. I'm saying people made these same criticisms they make against AI: buzz word, implementation detail, often unnecessary.

It's funny to me that people forget this. I agree the AI buzz is more pervasive. But thats a difference in degree and not kind.

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