The AI startup erasing call center worker accents
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
> If that customer is upset about their bill being high or their cable not working or their phone not working or whatever, they’re generally going to be frustrated as soon as they hear an accent. They’re going to say, I want to talk to somebody in America.
The thing is, outside of a racist minority, people don't hate on accents for the sake of it. They hate on accents because of previous bad experiences talking to agents with accents, usually simply due to quality of service (companies don't outsource to the third-world with the objective of increasing quality). They demand to speak to someone in America not because the foreign person is bad per-se, but because the American is likely to be paid & treated enough to care at least slightly more about their job and will probably have more power to fix things than the outsourced cannon fodder.
I think nowadays we have established it doesn't matter why e.g. IQ tests are racist if they impact different races differently.
This is supposed to sound really stupid, but I'm not sure if you would catch on to that or actually agree.
That is a racist thing to say.
So you're the racist for assuming you can identify someone's race by their accent.
First off, the stereotype is not accurate. You can get a call center worker in the US who speaks with a foreign accent. In my neighborhood in a major US city, I hear foreign accents about as often as I do US accents. It also isn't true that accents correlate to how much authority a call center worker has. Level 1 call center workers all over the world are basically following a script and under very strict management.
Second, this is prejudice on the basis of national origin and race, which is bad. The problem with prejudice is that you are "pre-judging" --- making an assumption based on partial information. Sometimes that cognitive shortcut saves you time, but other times it doesn't. You should have to spend time on the call to determine whether the call center worker knows what they're talking about and has the authority to do what needs to be done. It really does differ from company to company. Accent should not be a cognitive shortcut.
Imagine if you said that employers discriminating on the basis of race was not because they are hating on that race for the sake of it -- they simply hate on people of a certain race because they have had bad experiences with people of that race before. That would be completely unacceptable.
People notice patterns that are true often enough that they decide to avoid certain people. Saving time on customer support, reducing odds of being the victim of a crime, etc.
It's only an issue when people use too low of a threshold for numbers of experiences or percent of experiences.
I have no issue hearing an indian accent when I call in for tech support, but if I here one randomly call and say they are tech support I will hang up.
Its not just constantly used.
-Joking
Helpdesk says "send three and fourpence, I'm going to a dance"
Translator box says "send re-inforcements we're going to advance"
Sender-Receiver mismatch causes irreparable harm with costs. AI is now liable.
With live chat, if the person sounds dumb or unable to fix my issue, I just ask to talk to a human.
Everyone has an accent.