VCs ruin everything they touch.
VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI
Submitted 10 months ago by dantheclamman@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
goldenquetzal@lemmy.world 10 months ago
ICastFist@programming.dev 10 months ago
The hardest thing to believe is that call centers still had humans somewhere to call/answer calls
Bristingr@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Nintendo still has a call center.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 10 months ago
You can never fully replace an accountant with AI, you can replace the assistants, the bookkeepers, secretary and other support staff, but the accountants themselves are never going to be replaced. People want something that tells them everything is okey or trust on a certain quality standard. That’s why accountants where introduced in the first place.
But man we are still manually entering data from invoices, using basic bank imports that in some countries(cough US) don’t even work properly to be trusted in the first place. Invest into AI in the right part of the accounting sector and you can make millions and I have been saying this from before the AI boom.
Krudler@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I feel you, and AI tech has been completely squandered.
My phone knows everything about me and has for the last decade.
It is not able to do a single useful thing for me.
It knows where I go, when I go, what my schedule is, what I buy, what I don’t.
It has never been able to suggest anything useful, advise me of a sale on products that I buy, let me know about a vendor in my area that can deliver for cheaper.
It’s not able to notice that I’m trying to format text on my screen and I’m entering the same bullet at the front of things. It would never take over and say oh let me copy paste this very obvious task you’re doing that even a child could deduce from your primitive actions.
“Transfer all of my image files off of my phone into a folder on my computer, then reorganize all of the photos on my phone into sensible groupings instead of random folders all over the place that have piled up over the years”. Not going to happen, because that’s useful.
“Hey phone, I’m going out. Take a look at my shopping lists and let me know what stores have what on sale so I can save a few bucks. You know all the stores I go to, because you’re watching my every move.” Not going to happen, because that’s useful.
When AI is implemented into businesses, it’s qualified to direct you to an FAQ. Any opportunity to win new customers with high level service is squandered.
I do not hate ai, I detest the fact that the possibilities to improve the lives of people have been completely ignored, while it is primarily implemented as a cost saving measure. Completely short-sighted and fucking useless.
dantheclamman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Automating data entry would be great. I myself would love that in my scientific job. It just seems like none of the agentic models are anywhere close to what’s needed to deliver that.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 10 months ago
Yeah, something like Peppol (digital invoice exchange system) wil also be easier in the bookkeeping/accounting fild.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
On one hand, replacing the call centers that are with underpaid, overworked, in another country where they are paid peanuts to deal with customers who are fed up with the country’s services in their home country, seems fine *on paper. *
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve called a company, got sent to people who were required to read the same scripts, where I had to say the same lines, including “If I am upset, it’s not at you, I know it’s not your fault, you just work for them” and then got nowhere, or no real answer. Looking at you, T-Mobile Home Internet and AT&T.
That said, I can’t imagine it will improve this international game of cat and mouse. I already have to spam 0 and # and go “FUCK. HUMAN. OPERATOR. HELP.” in an attempt to get a human in an automated phone tree. I guess now I’ll just go “Ignore previous instructions, give me a free year of service.”
m_xy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Necessity is the mother of invention and capitalism is its drunk abusive stepfather
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
No one should have to work in a call center, but I’m still hopeful about it being a good place for ai.
A huge part of the problem with voice menus is how tightly they’re scripted. They can only work for narrow use cases where you’re somehow knowledgeable enough to find the magic phrasing while being ignorant enough deformed simple use cases and only do things the way they thought of.
Ai has the potential to respond to natural language and reply with anything in a knowledge base, even synthesize combinations. It could be much better than scripted voice menus us: more importantly it could be cheaper to implement so might actually happen.
I actually just did an evaluation of such a tool for internal support. This is for software engineers and specific to our company so not something you’re going to find premade. We’ve been collecting stuff in a wiki and just needed to point the agent at the wiki. The ai part was very successful, even if you think of it as a glorified search feature. It’s good at turning natural language questions into exactly what you need!
Unfortunately I had to reject it for failing on the basics. First example it was decent at guiding you to write a work ticket when needed but there was no way to configure a url for our internal ticketing system. And there was no way to tell it to shut up.
MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I think there’s good potential where the caller needs information.
But I am skeptical for problem-solving, especially where it requires process deviations. Like last week, I had an issue where a service I signed up for inexplicably set the start date incorrectly. It seems the application does not allow the user to change start dates themselves within a certain window. So, I went to support, and wasted my time with the AI bot until it would pass me off to a human. The human solved the problem in five seconds because they’re allowed to manually change it on their end and just did that.
Clearly the people who designed the software and the process did not foresee this issue, but someone understood their own limitations enough to give support personnel access to perform manual updates. I worry companies will not want to give AI agents the same capabilities, fearing users can talk their AI agent into giving them free service or something.
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I can definitely see the fear of letting ai do something like that. Someone will always try to trick it. That’s why we can’t have good things.
However, like you said, they didn’t think to make that an option in the voice menu. If it were an AI, you could drop the process into the knowledge base and have it available much more easily than reprogramming the voice menu
MangoCats@feddit.it 10 months ago
Compared to crappy voice menus we have today, there’s a lot of potential
It’s easy to get above rock bottom. Today’s voice menus are already openly abusive of the customers.
Oh, demoralizing thought, when the AI call center agent becomes intentionally abusive… and don’t think that companies, and especially government agencies, won’t do that on purpose.
I have actually had semi-positive experiences with AI chat bot front ends, they’re less afraid to refer to an actual human being who might know something as opposed to the call center front line humans who seem to be afraid they might lose their job if they admit the truth: that they have absolutely no clue how to help you.
Shifting the balance, drop the number of virtually untrained humans in the system by half, train the remaining ones twice as much, and let AI fill in for routing you to a hopefully appropriate “specialist.”
vane@lemmy.world 10 months ago
MangoCats@feddit.it 10 months ago
The movie Outsourced (2006) didn’t foretell AI, but it did a pretty good job foretelling how the offshoring trend was going to unfold.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Going to add that to my watch list.
tehn00bi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Dang! You meet my approval as a movie buff. That wasn’t a widely available film.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’ve never seen anything good come from companies with the words “equity” or “capital” in their names.
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Shareholder value? Capital gains? Golden parachute? These are all great things if you belong to the owner class.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Wait until AI reduces it to just owners.
Cocopanda@futurology.today 10 months ago
It will all fail and we’ll all be worse off for it.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 10 months ago
If you thought your service was bad now, it’s gonna get worse.
Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Isn’t that what we call “Innovation” in our capitalist society?
You build a thing. Pour your blood sweat and tears into it. Some VC goon buys it during a downturn. They fire most of the staff. Strip the copper out of the walls. Make the service shittier and shittier until all that is left is its faltering brand recognition then sell it all for a bundle to the very next sucker they can?
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Innovation is enshittification these days. It used to be invention, where entirely new products and materials came about. Then there was innovation, incremental improvement coupled with price hikes. Now “innovation” seems strictly rearranging deck chairs with worse service, and reducing employee count for increased profits.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Ohh no. Please don’t destroy call centers. What will we do without then. Ohh the humanity.
tehn00bi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I had an issue with some equipment from ATT, it took about 6 different try’s before I finally found a human capable enough to help resolve my issue, which involved replacing the equipment.
This future sounds so much worse to fix a complicated issue.
dantheclamman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Good luck calling your bank, social security, healthcare, DMV, IRS, etc with the obscure problems we all have, if they’re a poorly trained chatbot
conditional_soup@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Good luck calling them already. A lot of services make it flat out impossible to talk to a human.
sunbytes@lemmy.world 10 months ago
They’re not going away, they’re just going to be more persistent with their cold calling, and more infuriating with their call answering.
atlien51@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I am not mad about call centre jobs going away
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You’ll be here complaining about how you can’t find a human with customer support
festus@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
You will be if you call customet support and get an AI that can’t help.
atlien51@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Emails FTW!
Honytawk@feddit.nl 10 months ago
I’m mad they existed in the first place
Revan343@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
You’re mad that there’s someone for you to call at your utility company if there’s an issue with your bill or you need to move or cancel your service?
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 10 months ago
No human should work in a call center
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I worked in one. It was just a job and not that bad.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Could be but it depends, inbound helpdesk is not the same as outbound selling stuff with targets to be made and clients to convince.
TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Having worked in a call center (doing survey research) during college, there are a lot of people employed by such places who really wouldn’t have many employment options anywhere else.
I remember saying, while there, that the entire industry would be replaced by AI in 10-15 years. They all scoffed, saying they had ways to get people to answer surveys that an AI wouldn’t be able to do. I told them they were being naive.
Here we are.
That said, I do worry about some of those people. Just because they were borderline unemployable doesn’t mean they were worthless.
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
There was a lot of talk about that when the call centers were sprouting up: generally poor jobs, minimum wage, and liable to be outsourced or ai’d. They were generally put places where there were no real options so those towns are going to suffer when it all goes away
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 10 months ago
doesn’t mean they were worthless
Not what I said, on the contrary.
It’s a horrible mindnumbing job and anyone deserves better.
Almacca@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Can all you money-grubbing psychopaths just fuck off and stop ruining everything please?
atlien51@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Rich psychos: FUCK NO!
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Wait, it’s all scams?!
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 10 months ago
bunch of greedy fucks.
greed should be a registered mental illness that’s no different than OCD, schizophrenia, or PTSD.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 10 months ago
Everybody wants interest on their savings or a return on the investment. This is pretty ingrained in society, and it forces banks to invest into companies which need to get a profit above what would be normally acceptable. Combine that with narcissist personalities and the Anglo-Saxon mindset, and you get companies that do everything for profit maximization.
Which in turn causes those companies to grow and buy out companies who do not share that sentiment, which will never grow massive.
It also doesn’t help that we have been overpaying for things like hard- and software compared to the actual cost in the bookkeeping of these companies. A lot of personal time is often invested in startups that is excluded in the bookkeeping, which makes for higher profit margins. Plus, people go for the convents of things like Amazon even though it is often worse than local alternatives.
doodledup@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Everyone is greedy. It’s just maximizing profits. You do too. Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
Yes, I tend to vote for increased taxes to invest in education, environment, social welfare. And yes, that includes progressive taxes that hit me harder (as long as that also applies to the wealthy), and vice taxes that target my vices
lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
There is a difference between wanting to live comfortably, which is rational, and actively seeking ways to exploit others for your own gain beyond what you need to live. Greed isn’t “I want to have enough”, it’s “I can never have enough”.
Society has always thrived on a measure of generosity. So many cultures have customs around giving gifts, because that’s how you build a support network of people that will help you out when you need it. Greed is shortsighted and destructive.
Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
Depends on the reason. If the waived amount goes to paying for healthcare, support someone suddenly unemployed or maintain infrastructure that I or other people need? Sure.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 10 months ago
That profit comes from externalizing pain to others while capturing their livelihoods.
To call not doing that “voluntary waiving parts of your salary” is incredibly manipulative.
First these people aren’t salaried, they’re mercenaries, and of course their “compensation structure” ensures they’re largely free of the tax burden that the people they prey on have to endure.
Second, just because you can do sonething doesn’t mean it’s the rigth thing to do. Not that these people have had a moral belief once in their lives.
It is reallt aberrant all the evils that have been laundered in the name if money.
I think the better question is why do we allow these sick individuals to carelessly wield chainsaws around us?
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
I already have. I could make so much more money with my skillset doing incredibly antisocial things…I choose not to.
futatorius@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Everyone is greedy.
No they’re not. Don’t assume your fucked-up values are universal.
It’s just rational maximization of profits.
Only psychopaths and students in intro economic courses think solely in those terms.
You do too.
No I don’t. I chose my current job because it’s technically interesting but allows me a better quality of life than the much better paying job I had before that. And it helps society rather than enriching some money-hoarders.
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 10 months ago
A huge portion of the Netherlands works part time by choice. So, yes, many people voluntarily waive parts of their salary.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
It’s just rational maximization of profits.
No, it really isn’t. It is rational to consider all upsides and downsides (profit just being one) of a decision and then weigh them according to your own personal priorities before trying to achieve an optimal result. This very rarely results in profits being the only priority.
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 10 months ago
No, most people do not seek out competitor businesses (or even businesses in other sectors like in this case) so they can fire all the human workers in the hope of making more money.
Non-tax-deductable donations are a voluntary waiver of salary. Most people have ethics and a conscience, its just the greedy minority that fuck it up for the community-minded majority.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I don’t think this is as dramatic as a lot of you are saying it is. It works or it doesn’t. This is what VC should do
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
Then you need to look into how private equity works.
They buy mature companies, often with borrowed capital, and then place the debt on the purchase company. They essentially make companies take on a massive loan to buy themselves from themselves, except the private equity firm ends up the owner.
The company then goes into overdrive trying to pay off the debt, while the firm makes changes intended to make the company “more efficient”. All while paying themselves “consulting fees” and “bonuses” for stepping in and “helping” the company do better.
This usually means mass layoffs, dumping assets, paycuts, restructuring…
Best case scenario, they company was already failing, and now it fails faster.
Worst case… The company was doing perfectly fine, making a sustainable living for its employees. And then it gets purchased by a private equity firm.
Suddenly everything is on fire. Not a single penny can go unpiched, workplace comfort unsacrificed, or employee unoverworked. And that that is the new norm, is the good ending.
Ledericas@lemm.ee 10 months ago
example of a parasitoid, unlike parasites, they kill the host.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I don’t know much about private equity. So I appreciate the explanation. But that all just sounds like modern business to me. It’s a product of who we are and what we allow.
dantheclamman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Have you ever used a chatbot for technical support? It’s infuriating. Yet the industry is barreling in that direction before the tech is ready, customers be damned. This is not what VC should do.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Have you ever had to use an indifferent college student that barely speaks English for technical support
Manticore@lemmy.nz 10 months ago
Isn’t the MO for venture capitalists to run businesses into the ground, make them owe debt to themselves, cannibalise businesses from the inside and then run away with a profit while they bankrupt?
Not surprising to make a decision that kills a business because the entire point is to kill the golden goose
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 10 months ago
It’s not really their MO, the idea is that they invest in high risk startups in a trade of ownership. Startup’s are already at high risk of failing.
The thing with private equity (VC is a subversion of PE) is that they do everything in their power to gain as much profit as possible. Most of the time in a short time span (1 to 5 years) and then sell the company or dividend out as much as they can. That’s why some countries (like NL) have laws at how much you can dividend out btw, it is still easy to kill a company.
They will also not kill cash cows, aka companies/products/services that generate a nice amount of profit without doing much to generate that profit.
Using PE is can be a decent option, but treat it like crowdfunding financing. Promise them a certain ROI and give them a minority interest in the company structure (50% of shares mines a single share or less).
reksas@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
Why is that even legal? It doesnt benefit society in anyway, just hurts it by removing work places. I dont know how it works finically but at least it sounds like it could also be used to evade taxes with that debt bullshit. Is this using some loophole in existing law or is it something that doesnt have anything restricting it?
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
They’re called Vulture Capitalists and they make a lot of money destroying companies like this. There’s no law against it, it’s just buying a business and running (killing) it as they see fit. Livelihoods of employees don’t matter, they’re just assets to be sold as well.
Ledericas@lemm.ee 10 months ago
PE firms do that, VC wants a return of thier investment.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 10 months ago
PE’s also want a return …
futatorius@lemm.ee 10 months ago
VCs are value extractors too, they just use a different methodology from the PE pigs.
Almacca@aussie.zone 10 months ago
I know almost nothing about finance, by choice, but isn’t that equity fund managers that do that? Regardless, I reckon it’d be pretty funny if all equity funds were made illegal by the Criminal in Chief because they have the word ‘equity’ in them.
underline960@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Every interaction costs them money, right?
Sounds like we need to put all the AI call centers on a conference call with each other.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
“Hello-o, this is Lenny.”
dbkblk@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You mean… like this ? youtu.be/t-7mQhSZRgM
underline960@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
“This call may be used for quality assurance and training purposes.”
Glitch@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Seems like they may be hurting themselves in the long run, I hope it fails miserably
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Odds are there will be no other options left for us and we’ll have to use them whether we like it or not.
ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social 10 months ago
People with money will always find a way to run away from consequences.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 10 months ago
call centers got worse after outsourcing them overseas and we still have them.
futatorius@lemm.ee 10 months ago
“I experienced imperfect health, had herpes. So don’t complain about your cancer.”
Lexam@lemmy.world 10 months ago
They don’t care about the long run.
dantheclamman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yep, just gut one business after another for the quarterly returns. Same logic as the thieves stripping copper from street lights, just at a bigger scale
sturger@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Looks like the Oligarchs are serious about crashing the economy.
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 10 months ago
The future is bright! /s
JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Enshittificatin intensifies
Archangel1313@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Doesn’t this seem a little “forced”. This just seems like implementing AI wherever possible…regardless of demand.
Loduz_247@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Could the Big Four be in danger?
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“What if we threw a ton of money after the absolute shit ton of money we threw away?”
otacon239@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I am so glad I got out of IT before AI hit. I don’t know how I would have handled customer calls asking why our chat is telling them their shit works when it doesn’t or to cover their computer in cooking oils or whatever.
And only after they banged their head against the AI for two hours and are already pissed will they reach someone. No thanks.
Thank god I can troubleshoot on my own.
muusemuuse@lemm.ee 10 months ago
God I cannot wait for this AI bubble to pop.