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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

#421

Post by JsonDemWitOster »

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.

I've recently come to the thought that the reason why I find AI so snake-oily is because it isn't solving the bottlenecks of the use-cases it is being applied to.

The problem with customer service was never the frontline support agents but rather that these frontline agents are not empowered to solve the problems they encounter. I once had a human agent admit to me I was wrongly charged but they could not refund me on the spot because of protocol. Replace that agent with the smartest model and it still wouldn't have improved that interaction! (Of course, the business saves money if the AI costs a fraction of a human agent's salary.)

I'll take a shot in the dark and bet there was always an obscure/poorly documented way to solve your problem and that the AI could just find it in its playbook faster; it's search after all! It's also not inconceivable to go as far as to wager that a _human agent_ would just have been as effective; maybe the protocol to do it wasn't some obscure procedure for customer support.

----

That said, this is why I'm in disbelief that AI is bringing in as much value to the table as claimed. I realized that in software, it was never shipping the code that was the bottleneck to profit. I could be the mythical 10x productive engineer but all my output is still gonna be gated by things like testing of all sorts, customer acquisition, product development and design. Testing and product dev you could maybe automate but only after putting in considerable legwork yourself.

And of course, shipping 10x more features does not mean you'll get 10x more profit, not even that you'll get 10x more customers.

I have a friend working for an international law firm which has recently made a big push for responsible AI use. (I won't say which firm but the first partner name has to do with croissants and they recently organized an internal AI congress in Spain.) So, they are paying for AI subscriptions but I sincerely wonder if that's adding to their bottom line since their profit is bottlenecked by (a) how much billable hours they can account for and (b) the judicial process which famously moves at a glacial pace.

It's just a pattern I repeatedly notice when I look closer into things. And of course, as we all know, the cost of AI services today is still heavily subsidized by VC money. When that money is gone, I worry we'll be stuck with _expensive_ AI-centric workflows that's not really adding value to the business.

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

#422

Post by rbonvall »

jraph wrote: post #317
gilleain wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a feature that washing machines have had for a while - "generative washing" - it is where the extra odd socks come from.

> extra odd socks I have the opposite issue, can generative washing recover the lost odd socks somehow?

Socks are not getting lost; they are getting compacted to keep the context window small.

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

#423

Post by mrguyorama »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #343
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is a problem of choice I believe. When we use AI ourselves via tools like chatbots, harnesses etc. we are mostly actively choosing to do so, and have some control. We can always just decide to stop and do the work ourselves if its not working out. In the call center/situation of companies embedding it in their products, often its not in a way that gives users the choice. They are forcing it onto their use…

Well you also have to recognize that call centers are a net negative for every organization, especially as (almost) no one makes (B2C) purchases over the phone anymore. Whenever you call a company you are costing them money. With automation, you cost them less money. If they inconvenience you, all that does is discourage you from calling them more, which, again, leads to even more savings for them. The incentives are…

This is only remotely true in the shithole that is US business culture.

In better places, among better people, you run a good call center because it improves your brand value, and helps people, and solves problems, and you started your business to make things for people or fix things for people.

Then some jackoffs on HN say that your country is "Dying" because it isn't minting any trillionaires.

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

#424

Post by willismichael »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #318
willismichael wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If our hormonal reward systems are so fried that low-effort staring at a screen has become the most rewarding thing to do with our time, then the content industry has played us like a fiddle.

Look around on a train sometime at what people are doing.

Understood. Admittedly I'm as guilty as anybody else, but lately I'm trying to take more time away from digital media to spend face-to-face time with people, look at real scenery, and practice physical hobbies.

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

#425

Post by PaulHoule »

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.

Most phone systems will put you through to a human if you pound the 0 enough. The better ones will tell the rep that you did so and they know you are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore and you never have to make the case that they’re going to lose $100,000 NPV because they won’t give you a $500 resolution.

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

#426

Post by autoexec »

georgemcbay wrote: post #394
dylan604 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stil…

Considering the many embarrassing failures huge fast food chains have had trying to get AI order takers in their drive-throughs I'd be very concerned about an AI at some random local pizza place getting my order accurately

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

#427

Post by fluoridation »

ozim wrote: post #342
torben-friis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour. I would say that undersells the (not neutral, actively negative) impact of AI to many. What many people hear is "made with the tech that plagiarizes, leaves artists (and soon you as well) without a job, and makes things generic and bland!" You might as well ma…

Hard to agree. No one cares about plagiarism and artists. I bet lots of people would even be happy that artists get smacked because they see only high profile and rich artists. Normal people don’t care about AI and are not afraid that it will take their jobs. They are pissed off because of they are paying customers they expect some level of respect. AI bots are slap in the face, they ask basic stuff that human operat…

Mostly agreed. Practically speaking, phone support reps just follow a flowchart and scripts, so there's effectively no difference between getting an AI or a person (except in those cases where the STT can't make out what you're saying, but that can happen with a person too). But as you've correctly pointed out, it's about respect, and I suspect most people do find it slightly more disrespectful to be forced to talk to an AI instead of another person.

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

#428

Post by [deleted] »

duped wrote: post #348
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…

It wasn't obvious from the project outset that everyone would hate it, no matter how well designed it is?

[deleted]

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

#429

Post by mox1 »

fckgw wrote: post #324
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…

What is is about management where they can't see how bad and half-baked these customer service agents are, but the customer can tell INSTANTLY they're AI and just not helpful in the slightest

Its being pounded into their head almost daily (and from all directions) that AI is the future and the more AI the better. Their boss, the industry, other managers, heck probably even their children.

So any big AI initiative they are apart of had succeeded before it even starts!

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

#430

Post by Plasmoid »

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…

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