So you think AI isn't going to take your job?

[allklier]

Additional consideration:

Getting a startup demo like this website going is pretty easy for the most part. Some python, some models, some GPUs, some AWS time, fast-talking a VC in giving you some cash. Easy peasy, as long as you mention AI at least 7 times per sentence.

Getting AI to work reliably in a lot of conditions - not so easy. Ask McDonald’s and IBM. McDonald’s just gave up on their automated drive-through ordering system, because it just failed hilariously too often.

McDonalds removes AI drive-throughs after order errors

Totally in line with the fact that AI generally sucks for minorities - as a person who still has a decent accent, I lost count of voice automations that don’t understand me. It can be super frustrating. At one point I even had a major phone carrier hang up on me after the third attempt to understand my accent. ‘Sorry, we didn’t understand you, good bye.’… They hung up before I could swear at them.

[andy_dill]

@allklier

They hung up before I could swear at them.

What we need to do is teach the robots to feel so when you curse them out it means something. That’s an AI I could get behind.

[hBomb42]

@allklier

At one point I even had a major phone carrier hang up on me after the third attempt to understand my accent.

Shades of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8

[philm]

I think if I were behind that AI I might give it a little push…

[allklier]

Exactly. Not looking forward to it at all.

We’re already at least a decade in on a time where every aspect of life involves digital forms full of drop downs. There isn’t always an ‘other’.

Nature is more complex than any form will ever capture. And that’s part of its beauty.

But at least until now there were humans attached to most processes. They were not always empowered to override the form, but at least they would recognize when you hit your limit. Machines are incapable of that realization, unless programmed correctly. But doing so is not profitable and probably wouldn’t occur to the far too non-diverse tech bro shops.

They assume if it works in the valley, they covered all required test cases.

[BrittCiampa]

@allklier

They assume if it works in the valley, they covered all required test cases

I think this operates under the assumption that the people making boatloads of money from all this actually care. And I think you know as well as I do: they don’t. None of these companies have ever cared about diversity or equity or inclusion or anything beyond the almighty dollar. A simple facade made up of a “statement” on a website and making sure to get the proper banners and frames on social media for the appropriate months seems to do wonders though in terms of perpetuating the illusion that not everything is just about the cash. Cuz, yo, it is. Always has been. And in our current system, always will be.

[ALan]

Softbank plans to cancel out angry customer voices using AI

@andy_dill

What we need to do is teach the robots to feel so when you curse them out it means something. That’s an AI I could get behind.

[hBomb42]

Yesssss. This is the real dystopian shit!!!

[allklier]

On the Softbank story - how about just making products good enough that your customers don’t get angry?

In the last 30 days we had two customer service calls where we got testy, one with Optimum (me) and one with Wells Fargo (my wife, who is from Oklahoma, not Germany). It’s just unnecessary BS. With Optimum it was the human version of the problem. Them having to run through scripts on their computer, because my reason for cancelling doesn’t show up in the drop-down. It took 2 hours and 5 calls, none of them pleasant for either side.

Speaking of the Scottish elevator skid (which is super accurate), I think you could make a killer product in the age of AI - it’s a variation of the Life Alert button given to elderly people. Except all it does is say ‘Representative’ in a calm California American accent on the push of a button.

I mean I have to do that on 3 out of 4 calls to customer service, and it usually takes 3 tries before I get a taker by the voice recognition. I don’t usually call for the level 1 support issues, I can solve them myself. I call because I need a level 2 agent.

Here’s an example that just popped up in my LinkedIn stream - taking customer concerns seriously can result in better business. This is why you need human creativity, not this multiple AI characters singing in sync to a hip-hop song startup.

actual ad image from 2020 (88% uplift in positive brand sentiment):

Our AI stories and the Whopper have one common word/thread: artificial, and that life generally will be better without it.

By the way for shits and giggles, this is what Adobe Firefly would generate for similar prompts (not withstanding that the human creativity is in the concept, not the pixels, and the BK ad requires authenticity to work in the first place).

And considering that I did this in 5 minutes, and I’m not a super experienced prompt writer, which is becoming a specialty.

Prompt: Close-up of juicy burger sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce

Prompt: Close-up of juicy burger sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce, old, dried and with mold

Why do all three images have dried pepper corns on the surface? Ever got a burger served with pepper corns on the side???

PS: Sorry for ruining your lunch

[greg]

My first job after college was a year as a phone tech support specialist for Apple. I dealt with some pretty yelly people and I can tell you that every single one of them did not get whatever it was they wanted that made them think being an asshole would get them. Some people were so abusive that I would just hang up on them (which was officially allowed). I would often internalize the abuse and feel affected by it long after the fact. Just like you would expect a restaurant or store to intervene on an employee’s behalf, I don’t see why a call center doesn’t have the right to intercede on behalf of their employees.

As for whether companies should instead make good products that don’t make people mad, I can tell you that the vast majority of “angry” people I spoke to were just assholes who operated under the philosophy that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” and are terrible to every service worker they deal with because they thought it was a shortcut to what they wanted.

[allklier]

I appreciate that perspective, and don’t want to discount that there are a lot of squeaky wheels and abusive people out there. After all if they abuse their spouses, why should they be any different with tech support.

I have been the factory escalation engineer at HP for many years - the guy they call after they passed through all the other support layers and have not gotten anywhere, so they put me on the plane to go fix it, only to get yelled at by the Walmart IT director down in Bentonville. The local HP team had on their white board strategic plan literally written down ‘Have a thicker skin’. No joke.

So yes, I understand.

I do approach them with the appropriate respect. To cancel my account I had to talk to two people, which I know is the script. And after I explained my reasons, he had to get through 10 more tries to retain me. And I told him ‘I know you have to follow the script, but there is no way you will change my mind’. I was firm and pleasant on that call.

The problem is when I got three more calls, all of which wanted to know why I cancelled and if they could change my mind. We had to have the whole script all over again. And each time I told them the answer was a firm ‘no’, yet they kept calling. The problem was that my reason wasn’t in the drop down, so he must have picked ‘concerned about price’ as the default choice, because every subsequent caller asked about my price concern.

On the last call I did raise my voice, and asked her what it would take to them stop calling me, and that I would be happy to explain that to her supervisor. Eventually she offered to put me on the do not call list, but that it may take another 30 days to take effect.

It’s that kind of customer support shit I hate like the plague!!!

It was none of their faults. It’s the mindless scripts. And I told them that. I got a bit testy out of frustration, and on the off chance that the recording would be listened to by someone with more influence.

My reasons for cancelling: Optimum was my backup-ISP. I needed redundancy for a certain set of projects. Those projects wrapped and I no longer wanted to pay for backup ISP who was only used to ping the DNS server as health check. But there was no reasoning with them.

In a funny piece of fate, 10 days after I cancelled a moving truck on our street hit the overhead cables. He pulled the now unused Optimum cable down and snapped it. Luckily he left the Verizon cable alone. Karma…

The funny thing is, these calls do get recorded. In one instance at Amazon, I actually purposefully did a test order to see how a new support process I had designed worked. So I took the customer role. I then summarized the finding in an email and sent around to the rest of the management team. In a twist of fate, they pulled the recording and attached it to the email thread. So now my test order, which actually was for a nice pair of diamond earrings for my wife (which she still very much appreciates) was now going around the office as an email attachment. Slightly embarrasing.

But we’re getting way OT now…

[andy_dill]

@greg

I don’t see why a call center doesn’t have the right to intercede on behalf of their employees.

Based on my experience with health insurance, cable , and airline companies, it’s because the call center’s primary goal is not to resolve customer issues. It is a blast shield made out of people.

If call centers were allowed to intercede, they’d become more useful to the general populace as any increase of autonomy would yield better consumer outcomes.

Anyways, I feel for you. It’s a fucked system. When I had my flight cancelled it was painful knowing that there was nothing I could do, no maker of business decisions I could communicate with who would in any way shape or form make it better, or even sincerely listen. All I had was the poor, exhausted, understaffed human blast shield. (Who I did not unload on)

[greg]

Human Blast Shield… sounds like an emo band from the 90s

[philm]

@andy_dill

Console yourself that Dave Calhoun is exiting Boeing with a $45million golden parachute.

Possibly through a hole in the fuselage of a 737, anywhere above 1,500 feet.

With a parachute made of gold.

That would be an appropriate exit.

[julioleon]

@TimC

im gonna throw this really fascinating article onto the pile. I find it very difficult to argue the majority of the points made by Doug Shapiro here.

funny to see ’s post above… basically proving the point of this article!

GenAI in Hollywood - MoffettNathanson Media, Internet and Communications Conference May 2024

[allklier]

Here are two good topical articles from recent days:

WSJ article on actual job losses by AI and the sheepish way companies go about them: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-replace-freelance-jobs-51807bc7?st=1gjqba9o5aabir0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

And Eric Doctorow (of enshitifcation fame) providing some good insight on AI & copyright and the long history of big companies screwing the creatives, who have become the wheat between two mill stones.

We might enjoy some of the workflow benefits of AI (not that they’re fabulous at least yet), but be wary of the bigger picture.

Neither the devil you know nor the devil you don’t

There are many lessons to take from this little scam, but for me, the top takeaway here is that artists are the class enemies of both Big Tech and Big Content. The Napster Wars demanded that artists ally themselves with either the tech sector or the entertainment center, nominating one or the other to be their champion.

But for a creative worker, it doesn’t matter who makes a meal out of you, tech or content — all that matters is that you’re being devoured.

A lot of creative workers are justifiably angry and afraid that the AI companies want to destroy creative jobs. The CTO of Openai literally just said that onstage: “Some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place”:

[BrittCiampa]

Thanks for these @allklier - good reads. The thing that makes my stomach turn is now that we’re all getting a full tour of the sausage factory, the word “art” is never used whatsoever (which is not really surprising), but what’s really wild is it’s not even referred to as entertainment, just “content.” Content, content, content. Might as well just call it what it is: slop. These executives have an absolute disdain and hatred not just for the people doing the actual work, but for the audiences, as well. Their consumer base are pigs to them. Idiotic pigs who need their f**king slop. And then they can’t figure out why their box offices are so low… hmm…

[hBomb42]

Comcast’s term for their customers is RGUs - “Revenue Generating Units.”

[allklier]

And there is hope too…

Human Creativity Beat Out AI In The Cannes Jury Rooms

And a post I wrote on LinkedIn based on image someone shared on Discord is finding some positive resonance

Jan Klier on LinkedIn: #ai #education #socialresponsibility

[BrittCiampa]

@allklier Yes!!! Double yes! The funny thing is you mention education. Then I think of chatGPT and the number of kids now short changing themselves (although in actuality, they’re just kids, they’re getting shortchanged by this push) by using chatGPT to cheat out of assignments. I can’t help next going to climate change after high 90s heat this week and thinking about the energy and water usage of all this AI technology. Like, yo! When can I see some positive change in this world when the highest valued company on earth is making chips to fuel homework machines and spit out 14 fingered smeary characters? Can our priorities be really made any more depressingly clear?