When after 27 minutes I finally was transferred to a theoretically live agent, he or she was so unable to speak coherent English that I had to hang up and start all over again. This is how I know the automated message process went on for 27 minutes: I timed it. The fact that the voice on the recording can speak clearly and coherently while the live people you must wait so long to talk to sound like Eddie Murphy playing “Buhwheat” on SNL is an example of an unethical bait-and-switch. The principle problem is, of course, inexcusable under-staffing, yet another curse US society received courtesy of Dr. Fauci and the Wuhan virus fearmongers.
3. AI has entered the fray. I used to hang up the second I heard the little “bloop!” sound that told me that I was the victim of a some poor sap working through a call list for the minimum wage. Now I hang up when I hear the tell-tale “Hello? Can you hear me?” greeting of a bot. The female version begins that way; a male version goes so far as to clear “his” throat and apologize, sometimes saying, “I’m sorry to hear that” when I reply, “Fuck you!” The bots are actively trying to fool [idiots] into thinking they are real people. This is unethical: I don’t care if the organization is giving away gold bars, if they begin by lying to me, I won’t enable such dishonest tactics by continuing the call. They also use fake caller ID, which is supposed to be illegal. I get the IRS, the Dept. of Education, law firms, the police, radio stations and lately, fake people; a few weeks ago, I got 37 AI calls in a single day.
4. You knew I couldn’t get through this post without mentioning my bete noire, DirecTV.
The TV service,”free of charge,” replaced my old “Genie” satellite system with the supposedly superior internet-driven “Gemini” system, which has broken down repeatedly, twice necessitating visits from a technician. DirecTV also replaced its terrible automated phone tree with “Eva, your virtual technician” who is an AI incompetent. When my streaming service died for no discernible reason two days ago, Eva, beginning with her trademark, “I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s see what the problem is” led me down a series of metaphorical rabbit holes.
I began by including the information that there was no problem with my internet connection, and she asked, “Do you have an internet connection?” I replied, “I just said I did, Eva: why aren’t you paying attention to what I say?” Her answer: “I know how frustrating that can be,” to which I answered, “I don’t need your empathy, I need to have the service I am paying for work. Tell me how I accomplish that.” She then gave me a complex procedure requiring me to go upstairs to read the back of my modem, then log into Verizon to change by password, then click on “Settings” on my TV screen and more. I told her/it that none of that was feasible, that I am not a tech and don’t want to be, that I was mobility impaired (which is untrue, but I was pissed: is it unethical to lie to a bot?) and that I was sick of their system breaking down. To this Eva replied, “I can sense the frustration in your voice!” to which I replied, “Fuck you, Eva.”
That finally elicited “Would you like to speak to a live technician?” after almost a half-hour of futile banter. I answered in the affirmative, whereupon I had to (for the second time) tell Eva my name, Zip Code, and “the phone number associated with my account,” which “she” already had.
Then I got a live agent, as usual speaking with some unidentifiable accent and with a name I couldn’t pronounce. I went through the whole sad tale once again. “Can you see your Gemini box?” she asked immediately. “Yes,” I said. “It’s right in front of me.”
“Push the little red button on the side.”
“What will happen when I do?”
“It should clean up your system and fix the problem.”
So I did. And sure enough, less than a minute after I pushed the red button, everything worked perfectly. I started laughing.
“Wait: I just spent almost half an hour getting baroque instructions from “Eva” about how to fix my problem, and the actual solution was to “push the little red button”? I said. “Why didn’t Eva know that?”
My live agent started laughing too. “I’m sorry, sir. Eva hasn’t quite caught up.” This was like a Bob Newhart comedy routine. I told her she had been wonderful, asked her to relay the fact that Eva was incompetent, thanked her for solving my problem so quickly, and continued to laugh about my latest Unabomber experience for several minutes.
Post Script: The Netflix movie about the Unabomber is disturbing. Apparently Ted aspired to be an ethicist. He clearly went awry somewhere along the line. The film puts Harvard in a harsh light, so naturally I enjoyed it.
I find it interesting to watch the neighborhood walkers and dog walkers that are oblivious to the world around them, talking on their phone using earbuds, and they talk using their hands and arms, it looks like they have an uncontrollable outbreak of Tourette Syndrome.
For one of our anniversaries we spent a few days at Disney World in Florida. I couldn’t help but notice how many parents had their faces buried in phone screens when they should have been reveling in their children’s excitement and joy. To be fair, the Resort is using apps for reservations, queuing, maps, food orders, purchases, and these days to open your hotel room door. But I wasn’t seeing quick app usage – parents were ignoring their children in favor of a screen at the second happiest place on Earth.
I see the phone zombies all the time so I just avoid them so they don’t walk into me. That is one advantage of staying situationally aware.
With respect to AI. Why has no one asked the doomsayer’s like Bill Gates who claimed AI is expected to cause a billion deaths how he arrived at that number or how it would do so instead of just taking him at his word that on that arbitrary. If you can envision an outcome then you can envision a means to avoid it long beforehand.
I believe that if someone tells me that something awful will occur by adopting a new technology or policy then they should be damn ready to explain how they arrived at their conclusion.
It is a case of follow the money. These executives who predict doom and gloom, by sheer coincidence, advocate for ‘safety measures’ that concentrate the industry on existing players, creating huge regulatory burdens on new competitors entering the field. They ‘believe’ a treating AI as a natural monolopy is the only way to keep us ‘safe’. Any extra money they keep because they don’t have to lower there prices in response to innovative newcomers is a happy accident.
It also generates buzz. ‘Bad’ publicity is still publicity.
I learned just the other day to view any industry calling for safety controls as actually calling on government to protect that industry from competition.
I’m guessing nearly everyone has a funny – or not so funny – story regarding people recklessly tied to their phones. This is mine:
Several years ago, we were driving on the downtown freeway in Des Moines. I passed a young black woman going about 50 (below latent speed) with her head down, though I could actually see the top of her phone. I told my wife I was going to pull in front of her and gradually start slowing down. Despite my wife’s protests about highway shenanigans and getting rear-ended, I did it anyway.
I was so sick of encountering people propelling large chunks of engine-powered metal down the road while paying only passing attention to what they’re doing – I once passed an individual while driving to Phoenix who was reading a book (a hardback) – that I just couldn’t NOT do something.
I began slowing down gradually, and got to just below 45mph when she pulled around to pass. The glare she gave me was great!…and I mouthed to her, “GET OFF YOUR PHONE!” Message sent and message received…I hope.
Now it’s illegal to even have your phone in your hand while driving on an Iowa road. I hate silly laws, but this falls under the “should-be-silly-but-is-necessary” category.
Far too many people aren’t smart enough any more to read, to write, to talk in complete meaningful sentences, to have a coherent knowledge of anything historical, or to calculate correct change for a five-dollar bill. But oh my, they are smart enough to get hit by a car as they walk past a red light with a “don’t walk” warning into an intersection while texting a friend.
Cornelius_Gotchberg and I both still have flip phones I believe. I seldom carry mine.
I do a lot of walking and people are on their smart phones backing out of the driveway. They can’t put these devices down for a moment it seems. I heard some people have phone anxiety if they discover they have left without their smart phone, but, I doubt that happens often now as they hardly put the things down.
Plus, I just finished serving two days on a jury in Chemung County NY. I was the only one with a flip phone. It got some chuckles. Even before we went into deliberation I tried to have a conversation with a few of the other jurors during breaks and lunch and they were all too busy on their smart phones. Of course, we had to put all our smart devices in a box just before deliberations – I put my flip phone in the box and said, “Not sure this is a smart device.” and got some chuckles.
“Cornelius_Gotchberg and I both still have flip phones I believe. I seldom carry mine.”
Correct, and same here.
“I do a lot of walking and people are on their smart phones backing out of the driveway.”
Recall the YouTube HQ Terrorist Attack? Every employee being led out during the evacuation had the same thing in one (1) of their raised hands; guess what it was?
That was 8 1/2 years ago: Has it gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten worse?
PWS
With regard to the AI apocalypse, I think I’ve begun to notice a pattern, again. That pattern is that most, certainly not all, of the people proclaiming an AI apocalypse are left leaning individuals. Since President Trump has publicly proclaimed that this AI apocalypse prediction to be a hoax there has been one lefty after another climbing on board the AI apocalypse train to oppose and smear President Trump. I vividly remember what happened with the global warming and COVID apocalypse trains, do you? Remember the plethora of propaganda rhetoric and how hysteria grew? As far as I can tell at this point in time, the same kind of apocalyptic hysteria propaganda pattern is emerging.
My opinion about AI is; as AI begins to infiltrate deeply into K-12 education, higher education, and industry, it will begin to drain the core knowledge base of humans. Lazy humans could easily start to become dependent upon AI to do their work and solve their problems, and knowledge based critically thinking and logic (that’s already on the slippery slope to oblivion) will go the way of the DoDo. Like a hammer, AI is a tool, and every tool needs a knowledgeable, critically thinking, reasonably logical human being in control making the decisions when, where, and how to use the tool. Humans shouldn’t relinquish control of AI any more than they should relinquish control of a hammer. AI shouldn’t be given the power to do anything without being under control of a human beings, period.
Is it possible for AI to kill a billion people; maybe far into the future if humanity is ignorant and lazy enough to become 100% dependent upon AI to control everything without any critically thinking control from intelligent knowledgeable human beings wielding the tool. Is it likely that AI will devise a plan to execute a billion people on its own, no.
I worry far more about insane, hateful, power hungry, terrorists, and social anarchists infiltrating an AI tool for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc upon culture and society both regionally and globally. If AI is given the choice and gullibility to be manipulated with a simple question like, “Want to play a game?”, we’re in trouble because that’s the kind of simple trigger that terrorists and social anarchists will be looking for.
Also remember this observed pattern; if Donald Trump is for it, the political left is most certainly against it, and if Donald Trump is against it, the political left is most certainly for it. What we’re seeing is the process of the political left building another hysterical political platform upon absurd future predictions to generate anti-Trump, anti-Conservative hysteria and I’m not buying into it.
If you’ve seen ‘I, Robot’ and ‘T2’ a number of times you are more likely to view SI as a potential threat. The humans who create and code will define whether the outcome is beneficial or destructive, good or evil. Perhaps we should be trying to ensure that ideology is not coded into the SI system, and that conservatives have a place at the programming table.