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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

#481

Post by randycupertino »

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

> the customer can tell INSTANTLY they're AI

I had to call Geico's claims department yesterday and their AI customer service agent had a surfer bro accent, said "no worries" and "hang tight" and "I gotchu" while trying to follow-up on my claim which made it even more infuriating to interact with. Like... stop with the affectations and fake trying to be hip just be professional and succinct please!

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

#482

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #294
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI has been a culturally radioactive PR disaster of truly epic proportions. Aside from whether or not it works, there are so many established catastrophically negative talking points - steals from creators, destroys the environment, is coming for your job - I'm not sure its reputation can be recovered.

Does it's reputation even matter? Everyone with money is pushing it, heavily. The government is even stepping in to stop any kind of punishment when it's factually shown that they are stealing water. The people will learn to tolerate it whether they like it or not, eventually.

The data center roll-out is weird, and far beyond anything that can be justified rationally. But this administration is aggressively pro-grift and anti-reality, so I would suspect that's as likely to be about some kind of corruption/grift/Ponzi as about real capability.

I try to distinguish between the actual tech, which spans light and dark, and the financial and economic engineering around it, which is definitely a darker shade of black.

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

#483

Post by devsda »

nightski wrote: post #78
dngray wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real thing i think people forget is that humans actually value time and effort from other humans. AI is often used by people who want to do neither and that's really what it boils down to. Ask yourself, would you like to receive a christmas or birthday card with a personalized message or something produced you know was 100% produced by AI bot - even better when it has a hallucination in there.

Hallmark built a brand on creating generic messages in card.

If you send cards via a third-party subscription service that mails random cards to uploaded contacts in bulk, you'd get marks for setting it up the first time but as the cards pile up and the if the service is detected, it will eventually become a signal that you don't care enough to send them personally.

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

#484

Post by t-writescode »

mrguyorama wrote: post #423
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is grass greener logic.

Try cancelling a flight on British Airways months in advance.

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

#485

Post by samtp »

fsloth wrote: post #106
GrinningFool wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough, I don't recall any companies advertising to consumers that they outsourced.

I guess they can say "Made in China, designed by Apple in California" in the packaging but at least they still take pride in the design. With AI it sounds you are disavowing also the authorship of the design.

thats more of a legal requirement rather than an active advertisement to consumers

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

#486

Post by Spooky23 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #447
npongratz wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dental practices are notorious for being badly run: dentists often have great technical skills but are lacking in people skills, business skills, common sense, etc. Seyle in The Stress of Life talks about early research about how many dentists struggle because of this. Dentists frequently get talked into MLM scams (which they have a lot of money to lose on) or Scientology management training (which they have a lot of…

It is hilarious that they are the punchline so consistently.

My old dentist had $3 million embezzled over 4-5 years by a bookkeeper.

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

#487

Post by t-writescode »

vanuatu wrote: post #303
throwaway63467 wrote: post #125

For most consumers AI will be a net negative. Already I can tell more and more companies use it in their call centers and support workflows, often just to stonewall customers: they reply very politely and with great attention to detail but will not solve your issue as they don’t have any decision power. I really don’t look forward to this new world, AI is a powerful and useful too for creators but it will and already…

The frontier companies are building agents to automate work end to end (i.e. with decision power) The tech takes a while to diffuse like any other but I think call centers don't have a great outlook

I feel sorry for anyone that has to deal with account transfer due to end of life when working exclusively in LLM hell in your imagined world.

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

#488

Post by Spooky23 »

tty456 wrote: post #472
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…

Do the customers know they're interacting with AI? If so, is that the intention?

Shitty companies usually outsource to Indian or Filipino call centers, but the AI is a chirpy fake white person.

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

#489

Post by Spooky23 »

jcranmer wrote: post #368
lacy_tinpot wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true schools wouldn't have a problem with AI. AI usage is rampant.

AIUI, most of the AI usage by students is seen by themselves as cheating, and cheating is largely for the tasks that you don't care about. Which means there's likely a strong association with students of generative AI work products with "we don't care about the quality of this stuff." Rampant use of AI for cheating is not at all incompatible with negative opinions of AI.

School is also an arms race. They are fighting for rank, once people use it for that purpose you have to keep up.

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

#490

Post by thewebguyd »

mox1 wrote: post #429
fckgw wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Yep, and there's the FOMO aspect.

Especially in non-tech/non-product companies right now. Look at the age profile of owners and CEOs. Most of them were around for the dotcom era, and eventually they saw that companies that ignored the internet or didn't adapt where completely left behind.

There's a real fear among the C-suite/management that this is the same thing all over again, and if they are not fast enough on the adoption they will lose their business.

To them, AI is an existential crisis.

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