Does anyone have any thoughts on this? While I have had generally unpleasant experiences interacting with call centers abroad this suggestion seems even worse. I often wonder if the people who create such stuff ever have to deal with the robotic voice on the phone. Here is the article:

When Google introduced Google Duplex, its AI assistant designed to speak like a human, the company showed off how the average person could use the tech to save time making reservations and whatnot. What wasn’t touched on was the possibility that Duplex may have a use on the other side of the line, taking over for call center employees and telemarketers.

A report from The Information suggests Google may be making a play to find other applications for its human-sounding assistant and has already started experimenting with ways to use Duplex to do with away roles currently filled by humans—a move that could have ramifications for millions of people.

Citing a person familiar with Google’s plans, The Information reported the company is already in conversation with at least one potential customer that would like to integrate Duplex into its operations. That firm, an unnamed large insurance company, is reportedly interested in using the voice assistant to handle simple, straightforward customer service calls.

A spokesperson for Google told Gizmodo the following:

We’re currently focused on consumer use cases for the Duplex technology where we can help people get things done, rather than applying it to potential enterprise use cases. We aren’t testing Duplex with any enterprise clients. Duplex is designed to operate in very specific use cases, and currently we’re focused on testing with restaurant reservations, hair salon booking, and holiday hours with a limited set of trusted testers. It’s important that we get the experience right, and we’re taking a slow and measured approach as we incorporate learnings and feedback from our tests.

If Google can find its way into the business of automated phone calls for companies, it could creep its way into a massive profit center. The research firm ResearchAndMarkets projects the cloud-based customer call center market will reach about $21 billion by 2022—up from $6.8 billion in 2017.

Of course, as the market expands, so will the competition, and Google isn’t the only major tech firm that sees opportunity in entering call centers. Last year, Amazon started selling a version of its wildly popular voice assistant Alexa designed specifically for use responding to questions via phone and text. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco also already have their foot in the door of this business, per The Information.

While there may be major profits awaiting these firms as the conquer call centers, they also come with a cost: humans will inevitably be bumped from the jobs. Most companies already outsource the work to countries where they can pay paltry wages in order to keep the expenses related to customer service down, and AI would likely cut those costs even more. That would be devastating for a nation like the Philippines, which has an estimated 1.2 million call-center workers according to the Wall Street Journal.

Historically, one of the biggest obstacles to eliminating the human aspect of customer call interactions is the fact that the AI kinda sucks to deal with. A 2015 survey conducted by The Conversation found that the vast majority of people—90 percent of those questioned—call into customer service hoping to speak with a human. About eight in 10 said they speed through the automated portion with the intention of talking to a person, and just 10 percent reported being satisfied with so-called “interactive voice response systems.”

Google Duplex may have a solution to that problem by making the automated interactions less robotic and more life-like. Google wowed people with its demo of Duplex that included the AI assistant inserting “um” and “uh” sounds to make the conversation seem more fluid.

That may also have the complete opposite effect on people. Some folks found the Duplex demo was scary as hell and worried about the ethical concerns of AI basically faking people out by pretending to be human. Backlash eventually made Google promise that Duplex will tell people they are speaking with AI, but the company still has a way to go to ease everyone’s worries.

That seems to be a hang-up for Google’s efforts to get into the call center business, as well. According to The Information, “ethical concerns” overshadowed Google’s demonstration of the Duplex technology, and the company interested in the assistant has pumped the brakes on the proposed project.

LINK https://gizmodo.com/google-is-...l-centers-1827379911

I had an AI call the other day. Something seemed off, so I asked what is two plus two. The AI told me that it was against company policy to answer that kind of question.

<click>

They can't even make an automated menu that works correctly yet, but they're gonna have AI actually fielding calls? Yeah, good luck with that.

I wonder if there are any legal issues with doing this. Not sure what, but I wonder if a company has to be clear that it's not a human you are speaking to. Likely not.

by the way, Monk, good to see you again. Been a while since I've seen your jumping avatar.

quote:

A 2015 survey conducted by The Conversation found that the vast majority of people—90 percent of those questioned—call into customer service hoping to speak with a human. About eight in 10 said they speed through the automated portion with the intention of talking to a person, and just 10 percent reported being satisfied with so-called “interactive voice response systems.”

There's your answer right there. Fuck no. I refuse to talk to machine. I repeatedly hit 0 or just repeat over and over representative. A creepy intelligent computer won't help. Open the pod bay door HAL comes to mind. As well as the day skynet became self aware.

Maybe in the not too distant future, if you like the sound of the AI, you can request it be uploaded to a gorgeous sex robot and loaded into a self-driving car...

At some point it may be talk to a machine or don't get help. Alternatively, if you want help from a human, you have to pay for it.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

A 2015 survey conducted by The Conversation found that the vast majority of people—90 percent of those questioned—call into customer service hoping to speak with a human. About eight in 10 said they speed through the automated portion with the intention of talking to a person, and just 10 percent reported being satisfied with so-called “interactive voice response systems.”

There's your answer right there. Fuck no. I refuse to talk to machine. I repeatedly hit 0 or just repeat over and over representative. A creepy intelligent computer won't help. Open the pod bay door HAL comes to mind. As well as the day skynet became self aware.

quote:

At some point it may be talk to a machine or don't get help. Alternatively, if you want help from a human, you have to pay for it

I hope it does not come to that. If I recall correctly banks tried charging to speak with a teller. I do not know how that has worked out.

I guess I already pay for that in the sense of a "hidden fee." The attorneys and accountants I do business with all have secretaries that answer the phone. I know I pay more for that, but my time is worth something.

I've heard that Youtube already does this with email, based on some videos from angry Youtubers who contact customer support to find out about videos being demonetized, etc.

Fuck that shit, is all I have to say. I get enraged enough when I talk to support people who literally just read off a script (Verizon, I'm looking at you) and do nothing if it's not on their script.

The bank I use has cut down on the number of tellers and replaced them with enhanced ATMs. They literally put ATMs in front of now unused teller windows. They also have deposit by smartphone and other tech to replace tellers.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

At some point it may be talk to a machine or don't get help. Alternatively, if you want help from a human, you have to pay for it

I hope it does not come to that. If I recall correctly banks tried charging to speak with a teller. I do not know how that has worked out.

I guess I already pay for that in the sense of a "hidden fee." The attorneys and accountants I do business with all have secretaries that answer the phone. I know I pay more for that, but my time is worth something.

I just got off the "Customer Support Line" with a major home faucet company. About 2015 I replaced a kitchen faucet with a modern upgraded version. Of course within a few year the (rather spendy) thing started dripping so I called on their 'lifetime warranty' and got some new parts sent.

Later I had to replace that part as well since they CS lady commented "the cartridge tends to last about 18-24 months before needing repair".

So we've done the replacement a couple times before & know how the CS script was applied.

THIS time it was a bit eery. Pleasant enough voice, rather emotionless/not really canned sounding but obvious script I took her thru several times. In the 20 minute call each question I posed no matter how complex/simple it might have been, generated a long/longish delay of 30-45 seconds before response. The boiler plate cued on specific words & generated a virtually identical response to previous.

Further review of a 2nd & 3rd question based exactly on their instruction half-page produced
repeat of previous 'authorizing sending a replacement..xxxx' regardless of my own rephrasing. Using terms from Q1 would induce seamless repeat of previous assurances and apologies.

I forgot to ask my Main Question: "What hath God Wrought"?

Ir might work if customers were given a BIG discount for using the robot.

Burn it all down

Anyone who has interacted with fake humans, whether on the phone or online, know they are simply undesirable. Humans want to deal with humans, not machines.

Wait until they take over the whorehouses.

quote:

Originally posted by rusbro:
Maybe in the not too distant future, if you like the sound of the AI, you can request it be uploaded to a gorgeous sex robot and loaded into a self-driving car...

More likely, to make it seem authentic, it will be an Indian accent you can barely understand w/ a bunch of noise in the background.

Once it can pass the Turing Test, I don’t see how it could be any worse or less desirable than the overseas call centers I get to deal with now.

Come to think of it, there’s a call center I’ve been dealing with daily for the last week and a half. I’d gladly talk to an AI bot over the next live rep I get tomorrow. Turing be damned.

-Rob

'Hal' Centers...Brought to you by Google!

If you can imagine folks being pissed off when contacting a call center for service problems, just think how short their fuse when going through the process with an AI managed interaction? When will folks realize that AI isn’t the assistant to humanity it’s developers are leading us to believe?