[Sharlin]

Honestly the only spot-on use case I can think of for an eternally calm, friendly, totally bland and generic customer service AI is for interacting with the Karens of the world and only because it would spare the nerves of human employees and because the logs would no doubt be hilarious to read.

[LPisGood]

I feel like nothing would turn me into a Karen more than interacting with AI customer service on a regular basis.

It’s already severely frustrating that at many companies, you have to talk to several people (separated by copious waiting) to get your problem solved after handling a severely outdated and underdeveloped phone system.

[Sharlin]

Yes, of course that’s how it will go in reality. But some customers are terrible people from the start and definitely don’t deserve any human service.

[spencerflem]

An empowered customer service team could do this by refusing service.

Its an offense to justice that its so easy to get away with being mean to service workers.

[account42]

The alternative is being mean to more expensively paid workers. That's what the suppart staff is ultimately paid for.

[spencerflem]

Never going to argue against better pay, but-

I see it as like- if you were the owner of a company, you could decide for yourself what the $/abuse trade off is, and for each individual customer decide if it's worth it.

As a disempowered employee, you can only decide in aggregate if the total $ vs total abuse is worth it. So in order to keep getting paid at all, you Must put up with every interaction. Which leads to no alternative to the person being abused and no real consequences for the person being abusive, which is a shame. And it seems a lot easier to take abuse if you know you have the upper hand and have an out if you ever want it.

[Sharlin]

I definitely don't disagree.