https://nypost.com/2023/07/13/dukaan-ceo-fires-90-of-support-staff-in-favor-of-ai-chatbot/
The CEO of an India-based e-commerce company said it was “absolutely” necessary to fire 90% of his customer support team because an artificial intelligence-backed chatbot outperformed them — slashing response times down to minutes that previously that had stretched beyond two hours.
On one side of it, this is nice to hear. I've dealt with some of these India-based support people and a lot of them are nearly useless. At the same time, it's probably only a matter of time until AI starts replacing more and more of our jobs.
just gonna say.. the India support call centers weren't " our jobs "
I spoke with a support person from Microsoft and he was awful.
I needed instructions for something. I went to the website. Couldn't find it -- the pages were outdated.
Contacted Microsoft.
It took Doofuss 30 minutes to get the link to the info for me.
He kept wasting time by trying to walk me through stuff and all I wanted was the correct link. I didn't want handholding. I wanted the link to the page with the instructions.
He was bossy, didn't listen, and was rude.
There. Rant over. I feel better now.
Edit: clarification
So, AI is going to be selling me extended warranty for my thirteen year old car? Great.
I am old enough to remember the 1960s when computers were going to replace all the workers. Subsequently, me and millions of others, all worked in IT!
The computers won't program or repair themselves............YET. 😒
And as a result we do what used to be the work of 3 or 4 people for the pay of 1. Actually less pay thanks to inflation.
Only because 2020 and most of 2021 the workers were inticed with the means for sloth..
Been happening since the machine replaced the assembly worker at Ford Motor Company.
Since long before Henry Ford came along -- machines that replaced muscle power (steam-power sledgehammers, cotton gin machines) or human skill (in the fabric or textile industry for instance).
A good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
Mechanization brought higher productivity per worker, and "Higher productivity" = fewer workers needed to do the same work.
Don't forget the printing press replacing scribes.
And word processing replacing the typing pool.
I've always said online jobs were flimsy at best , the guy in Pakistan will do the same work for a fraction of the price, enter AI
Heck yeah!
I love playing around with different prompts on different LLM platforms, too.