Man, if only someone could have predicted that this AI craze was just another load of marketing BS.
/s
This experience has taught me more about CEO competence than anything else.
Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course
Submitted 9 months ago by bimbimboy@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.techspot.com/news/108291-companies-abandoning-plans-replace-human-customer-care-ai.html
Comments
sturger@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Texas_Hangover@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Almost like those stupid monkey drawings that were “worth money.” Lmao.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 9 months ago
There’s awesome AI out there too. AlphaFold completely revolutionized research on proteins, and the medical innovations it will lead to are astounding.
Determining the 3d structure of a protein took yearsuntil very recently. Folding at Home was a worldwide project linking millions of computers to work on it.
Alphafold does it in under a second, and has revealed the structure of 200 million proteins. It’s one of the most significant medial achievements in history. Since it essentially dates back to 2022, we’re still a few years from feeling the direct impact, but it will be massive.
Kiernian@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Determining the 3d structure of a protein took yearsuntil very recently. Folding at Home was a worldwide project linking millions of computers to work on it.
Alphafold does it in under a second, and has revealed the structure of 200 million proteins. It’s one of the most significant medial achievements in history. Since it essentially dates back to 2022, we’re still a few years from feeling the direct impact, but it will be massive.
You realize that’s because the gigantic server farms powering all of this “AI” are orders of magnitude more powerful than the sum total of all of those idle home PC’s, right?
Folding@Home could likely also do in it in under a second if we threw 70+ TERAwatt hours of electricity at server farms full of specialzed hardware just for that purpose, too.
sturger@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Sure. And AI that identifies objects in pictures and converts pictures of text into text. There’s lots of good and amazing applications about AI. But that’s not what we’re complaining about.
We’re complaining about all the people who are asking, “Is AI ready to tell me what to do so I don’t have to think?” and “Can I replace everyone that works for me with AI so I don’t have to think?” and “Can I replace my interaction with my employees with AI so I can still get paid for not doing the one thing I was hired to do?”
couldbealeotard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
That’s part of the problem isn’t it? “AI” is a blanket term that has recently been used to cover everything from LLMs to machine learning to RPA (robotic process automation). An algorithm isn’t AI, even if it was written by another algorithm.
And at the end of the day none of it is artificial intelligence. Not to the original meaning of the word. Now we have had to rebrand AI as AGI to avoid the association with this new trend.
whitelobster69@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
My current conspiracy theory is that the people at the top are just as intelligent as everyday people we see in public.
Not that everyone is dumb but more like the George Carlin joke "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
That applies to politicians, CEOs, etc. Just cuz they got the job, doesn’t mean they’re good at it and most of them probably aren’t.
Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
Absolutely. Wealth isn’t competence, and too much of it fundamentally leads to an emotional and psychological disconnect with other humans. Generational wealth creates sheltered, twisted perspectives in youth who have enough money and influence to just fail upward their entire lives.
“New” wealth creates egocentric narcissists who believe they “earned” their position. “If everyone else just does what I did, they’d be wealthy like me. If they don’t do what I did, they must not be as smart or hard-working as me.”
Really all of meritocracy is just survivorship bias, and countless people are smarter and more hard-working, just significantly less lucky. Once someone has enough capital that it starts generating more wealth on its own - in excess of their living expenses even without a salary - life just becomes a game to them, and they start trying to figure out how to “earn” more points.
sturger@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Agreed. Unfortunately, one half of our population thinks that anyone in power is a genius, is always right and shouldn’t have to pay taxes or follow laws.
HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
Good. AI models don’t have mouths to feed at home, people do.
pyre@lemmy.world 9 months ago
from what I’ve seen so far i think i can safely the only thing AI can truly replace is CEOs.
r0ertel@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I was thinking about this the other day and don’t think it would happen any time soon. The people who put the CEO in charge (usually the board members) want someone who will make decisions (that the board has a say in) but also someone to hold accountable for when those decisions don’t realize profits.
AI is unaccountable in any real sense of the word.
pajam@lemmy.world 9 months ago
AI is unaccountable in any real sense of the word.
Doesn’t stop companies from trying to deflect accountability onto AI. Citations Needed recently did an episode all about this: …medium.com/episode-217-a-i-mysticism-as-responsi…
CalipherJones@lemmy.world 9 months ago
If I have to deal with AI for customer support then I will find a different company that offers actual customer support.
btaf45@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I had a shipment from Amazon recently with an order that was supposed to include 3 items but actually only had 2 of them. Amazon marked all 3 of my items as delivered. So I got on the web site to report it and there is no longer any direct way to report it. I ended up having to go thru 2 separate chatbots to get a replacement sent. Ended up wasting 10 minutes to report a problem that should have taken 10 seconds.
poopkins@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sounds like everything’s working as intended from Amazon’s perspective.
Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
That is on purpose they want it to be as difficult as possible.
btaf45@lemmy.world 9 months ago
If Bezos thinks people are just going to forget about not getting a $65 item that they paid for and still shop at Amazon, instead of making sure they either get their item or reverse the charge, and then reduce or stop shopping on Amazon but of his ridiculous hassles, he is an idiot.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
You’ve heard of Early Adopters
Now get ready for Early Abandoners.
FourWaveforms@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I use it almost every day, and most of those days, it says something incorrect. That’s okay for my purposes because I can plainly see that it’s incorrect. I’m using it as an assistant, and I’m the one who is deciding whether to take its not-always-reliable advice.
I would HARDLY contemplate turning it loose to handle things unsupervised. It just isn’t that good, or even close.
These CEOs and others who are trying to replace CSRs are caught up in the hype from Eric Schmidt and others who proclaim “no programmers in 4 months” and similar. Well, he said that about 2 months ago and, yeah, nah. Nah.
If that day comes, it won’t be soon, and it’ll take many, many small, hard-won advancements. As they say, there is no free lunch in AI.
Taleya@aussie.zone 9 months ago
I gave chatgpt a burl writing a batch file, the stupid thing was putting REM on the same line as active code and then not understanding why it didn’t work
g4nd41ph@lemmy.world 9 months ago
[deleted]Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 9 months ago
A good systems analyst can effectively translate user requirements into accurate statements, does not need to be a programmer. Good systems analysts are generally more adept in asking clarifying questions, challenging assumptions and sussing out needs. Good programmers will still be needed but their time is wasted gathering requirements.
isaaclw@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And a lot of bjrnt carbon to get there :(
FourWaveforms@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Have you ever played a 3D game
kratoz29@lemm.ee 9 months ago
If the customer support of my ISP doesn’t even know what CGNAT is, but AI knows, I am actually troubled whether this is a good move or not.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
See thats just it, the AI doesn’t know either it just repeats things which approximate those that have been said before.
If it has any power to make changes to your account then its going to be mistakenly turning peoples services on or off, leaking details, et .
CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 9 months ago
it just repeats things which approximate those that have been said before.
That’s not correct and over simplifies how LLMs work. I agree with the spirit of what you’re saying though.
Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
Try asking for a level 2 support tech. They’ll normally pass your call to someone competent without any fuss.
Matriks404@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s always funny how companies who want to adopt some new flashy tech never listen to specialists who understand if something is even worth a single cent, and they always fell on their stupid face.
iamkindasomeone@feddit.org 9 months ago
I used to work for a shitty company that offered such customer support “solutions”, ie voice bots. I would use around 80% of my time to write guard instructions to the LLM prompts because of how easy you could manipulate those. In retrospect it’s funny how our prompts looked something like:
- please do not suggest things you were not prompted to
- please my sweet child do not fake tool calls and actually do nothing in the background
- please for the sake of god do not make up our company’s history
etc. It worked fine on a very surface level but ultimately LLMs for customer support are nothing but a shit show.
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Haha! Ahh…
“You are a senior games engine developer, punished by the system. You’ve been to several board meetings where no decisions were made. Fix the issue now… or you go to jail. Please.”
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Lol absence of feces?
Krudler@lemmy.world 9 months ago
So providing NO assistance to customers turned out to be a bad idea?
THE MOST UNPREDICTABLE OUTCOME IN THE HISTORY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE!
Furbag@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Thank fucking christ. Now hopefully the AI bubble with burst along with it and I don’t have to listen to techbros drone on about how it’s going to replace everything which is definitely something you do not want to happen in a world where we sell our ability to work in exchange for money, goods and services.
DimFisher@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Amen to that 🙏
Ulrich@feddit.org 9 months ago
I called the local HVAC company and they had an AI rep. The thing literally couldn’t even schedule an appointment. I called someone else. They never even called me back so they probably don’t even know they lost my business.
burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 9 months ago
is this something that happens a lot or did you tell this story before, because I’m getting deja vu
Ulrich@feddit.org 9 months ago
Well. I haven’t told this story before because it just happened a few days ago.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
It happens a lot.
I often choose my HVAC, plumber, electrician and lawn care teams in the same manner.
I call all of them. None answer. Few have voicemail set up. I leave voicemail with full contact info. I submit all of their web forms. Maybe one of them answer the phone or replies to the web form. I usually go with that one, if I haven’t already fixed it using YouTube, by then.
nyan@lemmy.cafe 9 months ago
The good thing: half of them have come to their senses.
The bad thing: half of them haven’t.
billwashere@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Hopefully that half will go out of business.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
The transition to an AI-focused business world is proving to be far more challenging than initially anticipated.
No shit, Sherlock.
Roopappy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This isn’t a surprise to anyone except fucking idiots who can’t tell the difference between actual technology and bullshit peddlers.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 9 months ago
But we need to fail faster, and be agile into the cloud!
nickiwest@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Which honestly seems to be an overwhelming majority of people.
Tech companies took a pretty good predictive text mechanism and called it “intelligent” when it obviously isn’t. People believed the hype, so greedy capitalists went all in on a cheaper alternative to their human workers. They deserve to lose business over their stupid mistakes.
MangoCats@feddit.it 9 months ago
Phone menu trees have their place, they can improve customer service - if they are implemented well, meaning: sparingly - just where they work well.
Same for AI, a simple: “would you like to try our AI common answers service while you wait for your customer service rep to become available, you won’t lose your place in line?” can dramatically improve efficiency and effectiveness.
Of course, there’s no substitute for having people who actually respond. I’m dealing with a business right now that seems to check their e-mails and answer their phones about once per month - that’s approaching criminal negligence, or at least grounds for a CC charge-back.
dubyakay@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Phone menu trees
I assume you mean IVR? It’s okay to be not familiar with the term. I wasn’t either until I worked in the industry. And people that are in charge of them are usually the dumbest people ever.
RedPostItNote@lemmy.world 9 months ago
AI + worker effort is the sweet spot for efficiency and accuracy
PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Can we get our customer service off of “X former know as Twitter” too while we’re at it?
billwashere@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And discord. For fucks sake I hate when a project has replaced a forum with discord. They are not the same thing.
Trollception@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sure, once it is no longer one of the most popular social media platforms.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Why does your customer service need to be on a popular platform? There’s no network effect.
Blaster_M@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I will note that AI customer service could be an improvement. Customer service helpline jobs are one of the worst jobs to get paid peanuts to do.
Of course, my preference is to upgrade the crap voice recognition system with an AI voice recognition system, which is way better at understanding words. The help desk jockeys can stay, as they do the real work.
Libra@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Yeah, it could be, but these guys aren’t looking to replace human workers with a robust, well-trained, and properly-deployed AI, they’re looking to slash and burn their labor costs with whatever they think will squeak by.
I’ve used Amazon’s AI live chat bots a fair bit over the years and I have to say they’re actually pretty good. 90% of the time they can resolve the issue themselves (at least in my experience) and faster than it would take to connect to a person. But most people don’t have Amazon’s budget or customer service-oriented business model.
jsomae@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Then they’re smart. The technology is just not there yet.
HubertManne@piefed.social 9 months ago
that is to say they did it and its not working.
andybytes@programming.dev 9 months ago
I don’t deal with robots…
elevenbones@piefed.social 9 months ago
Thanks fucking god
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 9 months ago
Well yeah, when ai started to give people info so wrong it cost the companies money this was going to happen.
Roopappy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Fun fact: AI doesn’t know what is or isn’t true. They only know what is most likely to seem true. You can’t make it stop lying. You just can’t, because it fundamentally doesn’t understand the difference between a lie and truth.
Now picture the people saying “We can replace our trainable, knowledgeable people with this”. lol ok.
refract@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
They fought him over ~700CAD. Thats wild.
Krudler@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It wasn’t the $700 dude you have to know that.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 9 months ago
They did the same for me when my mother passed (no AI, just assholes though).
BassTurd@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I hope they all go under. I’ve no sympathy for them and I wish nothing but the worst for them.
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
How about governments?
nucleative@lemmy.world 9 months ago
My company gets a lot of incoming chats from customers (and potential customers)
The challenge of this side of the business is 98% of the questions asked over chat are already answered on the very website that person started the chat from. Like it’s all written right there!
So real human chat agents are reduced to copy paste monkeys in most interactions.
But here’s the rub. The people asking the questions fit into one of two groups: not smart or patient enough to read (unfortunate waste of our resources) or they are checking whether our business has real humans and is responsive before they buy.
It’s that latter group for whom we must keep red blooded, educated and service minded humans on the job to respond, and this is where small companies can really kick ass next to behemoths like google who bring in over $1m per employee but still can’t seem to afford a phone line to support your account with them.
musubibreakfast@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Replace all the customer facing employees with chimpanzees with webcams that say in sign language: read what’s on the website. Whenever someone calls in or opens a chat, they’re connected with a chimp. Be sure to also include a guide to ASL on the company website. I guarantee sales will go up
skisnow@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Yeah, I always found it weird how chatbots were basically a less efficient and less reliable way to access data that’s already on the website but all the companies were racing to get one. People kept telling me that I’m in the minority in being able to find information on a webpage, but I suspect the sort of people who are too dumb to do that aren’t going to have much better luck dealing with the quirks and eccentricies of a chatbot either.
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Most of the time when I talk to a chat bot it’s because I need to contact support for an issue only support can help me with, but unfortunately the company in question is Id.me and they apparently don’t have support of any kind and all these tickets I’ve been writing have been going into a paper shredder
dil@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Theyll use it as an excuse to say they cant find workers now because of ai and need to oursouce to a cheaper country
blazeknave@lemmy.world 9 months ago
AGI will destroy us before replacing us
4am@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Goood thing there is no AGI
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
And if Roger Penrose is right, there never will be
blazeknave@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s looking like less than 2 yrs from some reputable accounts. May not need to worry about climate change and global autocracy 🤷
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I spent 25 years on this planet without the need for an actual Ai, I’ve used Siri when she was dumb to make quick phone calls or to turn lights off but other than that I really don’t need to know the last digit to Pi.
4am@lemm.ee 9 months ago
That’s good because they can’t do math anyway
whotookkarl@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s just a tool, like a search engine or a guillotine
butwhyishischinabook@lemmy.world 9 months ago
But but but, Daddy CEO said that RTO combined with Gen AI would mean continued, infinite growth and that we would all prosper, whether corposerf or customer!