The current rise of "bots" that I'm seeing being developed of late seems to forget one really crucial thing about humans, especially in a time of need: We need to talk to another human.

It started with "choose your option", "press x.." call routing. You know, the ones which keep you trapped in a menu while charging premium rates. How many times have we all shouted "give me a human!!" to an automated call system?

This rampant increase in (money/job/man-hour -saving) bots seems to me to be very short-sighted and totally destroying the relationships that companies used to have (or dreamed of having) with their customers/users/(unwitting prisoners).