Comment by datsci_est_2015 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by datsci_est_2015 | Hacker News Reader

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datsci_est_2015

I knew someone would respond with this. HN is rampant with this sort of contrarian defeatism, and I just responded the other day to a nearly identical comment on a different topic, so:

No, it is not better. I have spent $AGE years of my life developing the ability to determine whether someone is authentically providing me sympathy, and when they are, I actually appreciate it. When they aren’t, I realize that that person is probably being mistreated by some corporate monstrosity or they’re having a shit day, and I provide them benefit of the doubt.

> At least the computer isn’t being forced to lie to me.

Isn’t it though?

> We need a law that forces management to be regularly exposed to their own customer service.

Yeah we need something. I joke about with my friends creating an AI concierge service that deals with these chatbots and alerts you when a human is finally somehow involved in the chain of communication. What a beautiful world where we’ll be burning absurd amounts of carbon in some sort of antisocial AI arms race to try to maximize shareholder profit.

The world would not actually be improved by having 1000s of customer service reps genuinely authentically feel sorry. You're literally demanding real people to experience real negative emotions over some IT problem you have.

They don't have to be but they at least can try to help. When dealing with automated response units the outcome is the same: much talk, no solution. With a rep you can at lease see what's available within their means and if you are nice to them they might actually be able to help you or at least make you feel less bad about it.

People authentically, genuinely, naturally care about other people; empathy - founded at least partly in mirror neurons - is the most fundamental human nature. It's part of being social animals that live, survive, and thrive only in groups. It's even important for conflict - you need to anticipate the other person's moves, which requires instintively understanding their emotions.

The exceptions are generally when people are scared, and sadly some people are scared all the time.

This point is hard to get across to some HN users sometimes

Is it? Either way that's really missing the point. Empathy being authentic and genuine and natural doesn't change the basic idea that all else equal dragging other people into your problems is a negative. If it helps them solve it, or helps lead to the problem being avoided in the future, that's great. If they're joining you in feeling bad from a place of powerlessness, that's bad.

> the basic idea that all else equal dragging other people into your problems is a negative. If it helps them solve it, or helps lead to the problem being avoided in the future, that's great. If they're joining you in feeling bad from a place of powerlessness, that's bad.

People require empathy and compassion; we need others to mirror our emotions and indeed to share them with us. We are social creatures and it is not normal, healthy or effective to experience (strong) emotions alone. Connecting emotionally with others is not a luxury or weakness, and certainly not "bad"; it's how humans naturally and essentially function.. Yes, it can be done badly and you don't need to be powerless - if your partner comes to you terrified about a cancer diagnosis, acting terrified yourself isn't helpful; but accepting their emotions, seeing them, and responding with genuine emotions appropriate to the situation is essential.

Many highly analytical people - to use a vague, undefined term - tend to think that anyone who comes to them with a problem must want their problem analyzed and solved - if you have a big hammer then all problems are nails, I suppose. Sometimes that is desired but certainly not always, and it can work against what people really need.

That's a fine general purpose attitude, but did you forget we were talking about customer support? It's unfair to them if they're getting invested beyond the surface level (unless we pay them a lot more) and the explicit purpose of talking to them is to get the problem analyzed and solved.

My last comment was intended to be read in that context too, not about interacting with the people you're close to.

Very good point, I did forget the context.

I still think you can have empathy on support calls; I'd even say it's important for the customer to be satisfied. They may be panicked, frustrated, exhausted, etc. Ignoring people's emotion gets bad results; it feels rude.

Of course there are limits, especially time; long stories are inappropriate. Still, I've had many empathetic, brief conversations with strangers on trains (literally) and elsewhere.

But it would be improved by having them be honest and not say they’re sorry when they’re not.

It's not "contrarian defeatism" to prefer a robot reading a script to a person reading a script.

I'm glad you appreciate actual sympathy. But that's not what the conversation was about. You're getting mad at the wrong thing.

Also, putting aside everything else, an actual human response burns way more carbon than an AI response.

It's an Americanism. You might enjoy e.g. a Northern European culture more?

Lying means to make a statement that you believe to be untrue. LLMs don’t believe things, so they can’t lie.

I haven’t had the pleasure of one of these phone systems yet. I think I’d still be more irritated by a human fake apology because the company is abusing two people for that.

At any rate, I didn’t mean for it to be some sort of contest, more of a lament that modern customer service is a garbage fire in many ways and I dream of forcing the sociopaths who design these systems to suffer their own handiwork.

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