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Comment by patmcc | Hacker News Reader

I care a lot more about outcomes than whether the person I'm talking to is "real" or not. If my bill gets corrected by an AI but not a person? I'll take the AI.

Think of the classic "is 0.002 cents the same as 0.002 dollars?" call - https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ - I just tested, and chatGPT seems to understand the difference - so maybe this would be a case where the AI is better.

edit: to be clear I'm fine with labeling if that's desired, it's the "I want to talk to a real person" that I think is silly (and oddly similar to the "I want to talk to an American" that people also say).

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And most people don't care how many carbs are in a candy bar but we mandate labelling because it creates transparency and accountability and empowers the public. We should be doing the same with technology, only far more aggressively and comprehensively.

If outcome is your goal, then why continue the overhead of inter-human dialogue?

If they remove the human element then it means all the rules become hard and fast because we lose the ability to reason with and get exemptions in special cases right?

There are many dystopian movies that showcase this and the resulting oppression.

My guess is the AI will be less likely to correct your bill than a person.

> I'm fine with labeling if that's desired, it's the "I want to talk to a real person" that I think is silly

So anything that you don't value is silly?

If someone said "I want to talk to an American" or "a woman" or "a $race person" yah I'd consider that (at my absolute most charitable) "silly" in that context.

I think there's a value/don't value axis but also a serious/silly axis. For food labelling as an example:

Contains gluten. Don't value personally, serious.

Contains GMO ingredients. Don't value personally, silly.

edit: more specific to the support desk example - we could label each tier by "has the authority to do $X", I think that would be far more useful.

> If someone said "I want to talk to an American" or "a woman" or "a $race person"

Well, sure. Or prejudiced, anyway, because none of those things affect how they perform their jobs. But whether or not the entity on the phone is a human absolutely affects how they perform their job. I would deal with a machine very differently than a human as a result.

> we could label each tier by "has the authority to do $X", I think that would be far more useful.

That would be useful as well, but the difference between human and machine isn't really about what authorities they have.

>But whether or not the entity on the phone is a human absolutely affects how they perform their job

Except now you're back to where I was, talking about outcomes.

I had a very minor issue with my ISP today - they sent me an email to return some equipment (that I never had). I used the chat widget on their site to contact them. I got (presumably) a real person and it went perfectly well; nice and pleasant, sorted out quickly.

If instead it was an AI, what's the difference? If I didn't get to the same result, or it took 10x as long, then sure I'd be ticked off. But for the same outcome? Why waste a real person's time?

I don't think we're at the point where an AI can reliably perform tier-1 support at the same level as a human, but I don't think that's too far off either. When we get there, I'll happily deal with the AI. If it doesn't work, then I expect an escalation path - the same way I do with the human support agent.

If I'm actually chatting or calling support, it's because things have already gone so wrong that I've been compelled to chat or call support. That's already an escalation, and is something that requires human understanding and intervention.

I don't see that the current state of AI is anywhere near being able to do that.

> When we get there, I'll happily deal with the AI. If it doesn't work, then I expect an escalation path - the same way I do with the human support agent.

I understand. If we ever get there, I suspect that I'll have no choice but to deal with an AI. Hopefully there will be some method by which I can just immediately escalate further and talk to a person.

Part of what I want from support is to know that my problem has been heard and understood by a person. If it's an AI, that is just more separation between me and the company I'm having a problem with. It may not be rational, but I want to at least be able to think that some person at the company actually understands my issue, the importance of it, and cares.

No matter how capable and "intelligent", no AI can give me that.

>>It may not be rational, but I want to at least be able to think that some person at the company actually understands my issue, the importance of it, and cares.

This is really interesting. I think this might be another "oops, I might be neurodivergent" moment for me, because I realize you're probably in the majority here. Can I give you a hypothetical? I'm not trying to trick you or anything, just calibrating my sense of how folks view this.

You have a minor issue with your ISP. They're overcharging you for some service, $60 when it should be $50. You've tried to resolve it through the site and can't do it self-serve. It's very clear, there's no ambiguity, some mistake on their end. Would you rather:

A) Call in, be on hold 10 minutes, deal with a pleasant/empathetic/helpful person, get it resolved after 10 more minutes.

B) Call in, no hold, deal with a robot/AI (still voice) who is all business, does not attempt to be human-like, get it resolved after 5 minutes.

I'd prefer A for sure. However, if my hold time were an hour rather than 10 minutes, I'd probably prefer B in order to get out of my immediate jam, and then I'd find another ISP.

But if I'm going with something like B, I'd much prefer it not be done with voice. Doing it on a website would be much preferable.

How about, "I want to talk to someone whose first language is English"?

Does it matter if their first language is English? I know a lot of people who don't have it as their first language, but still speak English at least as well as the native speakers around me.

Now, "I'd like to speak to someone who I can understand" is a reasonable ask.

Yes, that's much better phrasing and what I meant.

I'd rather they use the bot to correct the bill in the first place before they even send it to me.

You logic is sound ... maybe too sound. Have AI already taken over HK comments.

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