Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots Threaten Call-Center Industry, Human Operators

The headline should be that declining customer service quality threatens the industry. This had nothing to do with the technology getting better.

Chatbots are something nobody likes and that are simply being pushed by companies to see how much people will tolerate.

This reminds me of (a) the backlash of outsourcing call centers years ago to companies that did not have clear english speakers and (b) the talk a few years ago about trucker jobs being obsolete. Until there is AGI, we are no closer to a useful chatbot then we have ever been. And hopefully people will continue to reject dealing with companies that don't respect them enough to provide a real, knowledgeable person they can talk to.