[beej71]

This reminds me that I have to write my dentist. They replaced their beep answering machine with an AI chatbot, and the experience is horrible. I just want to say what I want, have it transcribed to text, and then have a human do something about it. It. I don't want to have to slowly explain to a bot who is just going to do the same thing.

Plus, the first time you encounter it, it doesn't identify itself as a bot for a couple sentences. And it's convincing enough that you fall for it. The feeling of being let down and realizing that you were just talking to a chump robot is severe, and is now associated with my dentist's brand.

[romanhn]

Same experience calling a dental office recently. The voice on the other side introduced itself by name and had this uncanny valley quality where I wasn't quite 100% sure it was a bot and felt weird asking it outright. Made for an awkward conversation. Once it became clear that I was, in fact, talking to AI, I quickly wrapped it up but came away feeling quite negative about the experience. It's not even that it gave bad responses, but pretending to be a human is a step too far.

[ashleywr]

My best guess is the logical next step is Apple or Google giving you a (paid) AI Assistant who will call up and make that appointment for you. Then it's just AI talking to AI, which I guess is still better than having to make the call ourselves which I appreciate, but it's certainly silly sounding.

[beej71]

In this case it was to settle a bill. And I know I'm channeling a bit of Leonard McCoy here, but there's no fucking way I'm letting an AI take money out of my bank account. :)

[throw4847285]

Same thing happened to me at my dentist! Infuriating!

I suspect someone is selling these to dentists in particular. Dentists have cash to burn on these kinds of solutions, I guess.

[npongratz]

I suspect it's more accurate to say the private equity that bought out dental practices everywhere have the cash to burn. At least for now.

[PaulHoule]

Dental practices are notorious for being badly run: dentists often have great technical skills but are lacking in people skills, business skills, common sense, etc. Seyle in The Stress of Life talks about early research about how many dentists struggle because of this.

Dentists frequently get talked into MLM scams (which they have a lot of money to lose on) or Scientology management training (which they have a lot of money to lose on.)

Given all that many of them might be happier if they work for private equity, and that trend is stronger with more women entering the field. I dunno if women are really worse at running a business but I think they are better at recognizing that they're not good at running a business when they're not.

[Spooky23]

It is hilarious that they are the punchline so consistently.

My old dentist had $3 million embezzled over 4-5 years by a bookkeeper.