Slaves to AI

[gduke2010]

Is it me or is technology becoming more of a pain in the A. New technology isn't all good. Today, I switched internet and mobil service and was at the store 4 times today and spent 3 hours on the phone at home. I was able to transfer internet over to the new provider. The mobile switch didn't work the store finally gave up for the day and phone support on the phone gave up, too. They weren't able to transfer, and want to try again tomorrow.

Also, I'm in jeopardy of losing my phone #. One of the girls assisting me hit the wrong key. So they're uncertain that I will keep my number.

This isn't the only incident. The company I work for makes us use an ap to sign up for insurance every year rather than fill out forms. It never works. We have to have the company administrator fix the problem every year after spending 3 or 4 hours on the phone trying to sign up for insurance. We can't just sign up on the insurance company's website; have to use an app.Sounded so, simple.

Last year lost all internet service. Talked to the provider who determined it was a Netgear issue. So, on the phone with Netgear until midnight. Spoke to several people in customer service until it was determined Netgear hadn't updated the router in 5 years. Half the time on the phone was waiting for all the updates to complete. BTW, I think they charged me for the fix, if I remember.

These are just some of the many examples

The company I work for needed me to sign up for another app. I did but, can't log on. This happened to the guy I've been working with for a year. We both told the office that we signed up and the app doesn't work, and told the girl from the office we did everything we could and we're done with apps.

I can't wait until AI makes my life more simple.

[unclebilly]

Yup, the time I waste weekly because google earth has our address out by *10 MILES*…

I’ve tried to correct it several times and it’s denied each time. I’ve posted in the google community and maybe it might get fixed… maybe.

10 MILES tho…

[john70t]

OTOH, AI could decide someone else has better credentials and switch your account over, refusing to fix it. Open the pod bay doors Hal.

The Apps and people's laziness seem to be the problem, not the need for one-touch solutions.
Because when they go wrong they could go very wrong.
And there won't be a single human with common sense around to fix it.

I wasted a lot of time driving through the back roads of central Florida because that's what what the little Garmin box said to do. Could have jumped over to the freeway.
There are many instances of people bypassing 'road closed' signs and driving off open bridges.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

Yup, the time I waste weekly because google earth has our address out by *10 MILES*…

I’ve tried to correct it several times and it’s denied each time. I’ve posted in the google community and maybe it might get fixed… maybe.

10 MILES tho…

Wow, crazy. We live between 2 highways, our property borders both. Google had the entrance to the property on the wrong highway. I submitted a request to have it updated, and it seems to have gone through. It's crazy that yours is getting denied.

Originally Posted by john70t

OTOH, AI could decide someone else has better credentials and switch your account over, refusing to fix it. Open the pod bay doors Hal.

The Apps and people's laziness seem to be the problem, not the need for one-touch solutions.
Because when they go wrong they could go very wrong.
And there won't be a single human with common sense around to fix it.

I wasted a lot of time driving through the back roads of central Florida because that's what what the little Garmin box said to do. Could have jumped over to the freeway.
There are many instances of people bypassing 'road closed' signs and driving off open bridges.

Yep, it's all about cost and incompetence. Companies have to show more profit, so they either have fewer folks or pay less so they end up with either high turnover or only managed to hire the incompetent.

AI is only as good as it's programmed to be, at least, today. I'm not expecting it to be any sort of savior.

[Rusty Heap]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

Yup, the time I waste weekly because google earth has our address out by *10 MILES*…

Dont understand the "need" to be on Google Earth? why?


Heck I don't WANT to be bothered, hence where I live.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

Yup, the time I waste weekly because google earth has our address out by *10 MILES*…

I’ve tried to correct it several times and it’s denied each time. I’ve posted in the google community and maybe it might get fixed… maybe.

10 MILES tho…

It is not just Google. For years my own GPS and Google maps had my address 800 feet off, on the wrong side of the road. It made getting a pizza deliver a pain. Apple maps, Bing Maps and other GPSs all had it wrong as there is one shared database. After a few years, magically it was fixed.

Street address and location data are somehow shared between all the different platforms. See if Bing maps is off as well.

[gduke2010]

Dealing with these issue sucks. It takes time away from going to the gym, golfing or watching football.

[gduke2010]

Rusty, it doesn't get any better. The pic. of your spread is inspiration.

[zakthor]

I don’t see what ai has to do with any of it. Flat out incompetent org, I bet it’s dumb people from top to bottom. Exec answers to short term profits for shareholders. Walk with your feet.

Modern tech is great but most people don’t know how to use it. A lot of it’s so good it looks like it’s working when it’s broken in some fundamental way.

When I switched internet from comcast to quantum I had a heck of a time with them skipping the install appointment. I’d wait, they’d no show and they’d give me $165 no show credit. Then they show up unscheduled when I am out of town and I tell them to get stuffed, I’ll call you. They no showed the next 2 scheduled appointments. I’m up over $600 in credit, will pay for my service for a year.

Finally 8 weeks into it I got through to a manager and morning of next appointment I called to make sure they were showing - indeed no one had taken my ticket!

Guy got a crew out and… there’s no wires on my pole, I was scheduled to connect to a box over 1200’ away and they don’t have cables that long and no way to hang them along the streets to my house. We found a closer box 400’ away, got me reassigned, they called in the cable hanging crew to reach the pole by my house and job was finally done with me doing the routing from the street because I wanted it done right. Bottleneck was that installers are paid by the install and knew mine was going to take time because the planners had messed up.

The guy I worked with was going to use my install as an example to drive some changes. Who knows though. Can’t imagine the incentives it would take to entice me to wade into that mess.

I’d say root cause is bad executive incentives and that’s down to bad boards and shareholders not paying attention.

[varmint]

[Arizona_928]

I love ai images.

AI will turn intelligence cheap. Skilled labor will take over again.

[hcoles]

It's difficult to get a human on the line for many situations. Just wait until you have to deal with an AI backed phone tree.

[911 Rod]

I'd like to know when I'm speaking with AI and when I'm not.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

I'd like to know when I'm speaking with AI and when I'm not.

Local McDonalds has the ai ordering in the drive thru. You can clearly tell it’s AI due to the cultured speech and voice…

[john70t]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

I'd like to know when I'm speaking with AI and when I'm not.

There should be a law.
(and, NO, I'm not kidding.)

Power went out. I called customer service.
Expected to to speak with a real human being employed. Don't care who it is.

Cost of business for them. Like employing real human cashiers at the check out.

The utility company is a public monopoly.
(Ignore all past details of infrastructure and previous expenditures..blah blah )
Actually it's my money.
My services.
Utilities have gone up 5x over the last decade or so.

Got a 'person' on the phone after an hour or three on hold.
Sexy 'white woman' 20-30yo of course.
I asked if 'she' was human.
Of course. Yes!
She remembered me from a call several hours ago after hundreds of calls.
'Her' voice was still perfect.

I said Bull.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by john70t

There should be a law.
(and, NO, I'm not kidding.)

Power went out. I called customer service.
Expected to to speak with a real human being employed. Don't care who it is.

Cost of business for them. Like employing real human cashiers at the check out.

The utility company is a public monopoly.
(Ignore all past details of infrastructure and previous expenditures..blah blah )
Actually it's my money.
My services.
Utilities have gone up 5x over the last decade or so.

Got a 'person' on the phone after an hour or three on hold.
Sexy 'white woman' 20-30yo of course.
I asked if 'she' was human.
Of course. Yes!
She remembered me from a call several hours ago after hundreds of calls.
'Her' voice was still perfect.

I said Bull.

You should have asked her what she was wearing!

I have done telephone support (granted, very high tech stuff, so not nearly as many calls per day), and there are times where you recognize a person's name when you see it in a ticket maybe name and voice and the way that they talk stands out to you. It is possible that it was a real person that remembered you. It's also possible that she was 50 or 60. As much phone support as I've done, I can tell you that our mental images can sometimes be worlds apart from reality. I have to think that AI is mostly not so good that you wouldn't have realized based on speech, but maybe some big companies are paying the big bucks for the systems with voices and natural sounding speach.

[John Rogers]

Oh my God, it appears that including the phrase "AI" has become the newest ways to sell or scare or most anything you can think of. Most folks excepting some on here which are pretty darn smart do not know where computer programs come from???!!! Even a program that can massage an image or give advice or provide answers is still originally written, tested and released by HUMANS. When I was a Senior Oracle DBA (13 yrs) before retiring due to cancer radiation treatments their back parts of the whole Oracle Mass of Stuff was so well designed if you wanted to track, estimate, troubleshoot, speed up results, or any other need that would arise would give results and even tell you if some data had not been included in the design or the query, ETC, ETC!

A great example was their database optimizer which it turns out was a tad early in being released so many DBAs did not like it but the ONE fellow (wore green suits) that wrote it died suddenly! One man.....took a huge team of software engineers to go through his programming and finally come up with a bullet proof solution! Of course, if he had commented his code and kept copious notes as we teach in school now nor problem.
John the oldracer

[John Rogers]

A quick note on John70T what he mentioned about power going out. Back in August of last year San Diego area had a sort of hurricane come ashore and the wind blew the power feed to my house off the roof pole. I called the fire department immediately so they could block off the street AND call our power company. In less than two hours I had a new power supply line installed!
John the oldracer

[john70t]

[in some people]
The human mind can be curious, suspicious, wary, but then highly defensive against anything which does not fit.
Especially is these days.
Cough...A single incident leads to a decade of additional problems.

The mind wants to operate to it's fullest but it can't.

That is the worst thing imaginable.