[bluGill]

If you know what you want then not talking to a human is faster. However if you are not sure a human can figure out. I'm not sure I'd trust a voice assistant - the value in the human is an informed opinion which is hard to program, but it is easy to program a recommendation for whatever makes the most profit. Of course humans often don't have an informed opinion either, but at least sometimes they do, and they will also sometimes admit it when they don't.

[scotty79]

> the value in the human is an informed opinion which is hard to program

I don't think I ever used a human for that. They are usually very uninformed about everything that's not their standard operational procedure or some current promotional materials.

[bluGill]

20 years ago when I was at McDonalds there would be several customers per shift (so many 1 in 500?) who didn't know what they wanted and asked for a recommendation. Since I worked there I ate there often enough to know if the special was something I liked or not.

[scotty79]

Bless your souls. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I just personally had only bad experiences so I actively avoid human interactive input in my commercial activity.

[MonkeyClub]

> I actively avoid human interactive input in my commercial activity

Not to mention that the "human input" can be pre-scripted to urge you to purchase more, so it's not genuinely a human interaction, it's only a human delivering some bullshit "value add" marketing verbiage.