Are there really companies losing right now for using less AI?
Think - would you rather your telecom company’s customer support be AI-forward? Would you pay an extra $5 per month to ensure that you get humans solving your problems immediately when you call with an issue?
What about your backup software? Would you rather choose the company that comes out with new innovations in backing up your data and tons of features, but occasionally breaks everything? Or would you want to choose a company for backup software that is slow at adding anything new and reliable? Isn’t it good if this is deterministic?
What about even a fitness tracking watch. Are there really that many missing features that need to be released way faster? Or is it better if it just tracks your heart rate and workouts well and then gets out of your way? Same here, don’t you want the features to be reliable and deterministic?
I'd be fine with an LLM for customer support, as long as it's empowered to solve my problem. There's nothing a low-level CS representative does that couldn't be handled by an LLM. In both cases, the limiting factor is the authority granted to them by their employer.
Nobody uses an LLM for watches or data backup AFAIK so those seem like moot points.
>There's nothing a low-level CS representative does that couldn't be handled by an LLM.
This kind of reductionist take is an immediate tell that one has no experience in that kind of role. More worryingly, it hints of something antisocial and misanthropic. Do you not enjoy talking with other people during your day? Have you never experienced the resolution of complexity or ambiguity from a person that is intimately familiar with a product, its documentation, or internal processes?
Do you not enjoy talking with other people during your day?
CS reps? No. You must be very lonely, yourself, if your mind went there in the context of this conversation.
Have you never experienced the resolution of complexity or ambiguity from a person that is intimately familiar with a product, its documentation, or internal processes?
Yes, and it's universally something that should have been possible online without talking to anyone, AI or human. That's my real hope.
Stage 1: Corporations replace impotent CS reps with AI.
Stage 2: Corporations gradually empower the AI to interface with their existing internal systems in order to get the customer off the phone faster and avoid social-media brouhahas. Yes, they could have empowered the people in stage 1 to do that, but they didn't.
Stage 3: Corporations realize the AI is just another unnecessary middleman on their payroll, and empower customers to check status, report and escalate issues, handle SLA and billing problems, and obtain RMAs directly via their websites. Which should have been how it worked all along.
Are you shocked that techbros (and especially their CEO leaders) are misanthropists? We have probably empowered the most society adverse group of people in human history. Ones that didn't even need to speak to other humans to become rich.
Why is this alternative better?