Grumpa Joe's Place

Finally, I finished reading the book on Artificial Intelligence. Throughout the book, the author kept me enthralled, mostly by how it works, and by predicting the future of mankind’s job prospects. Jobs are in jeopardy for sure. The problem, as I see it, is that only jobs that can be easily automated will be affected. The author, an accomplished AI expert, is overselling the power of this technology, and assuming that the world will be able to automate just as fast and as easily as they will implement AI.

The most obvious places I see AI implemented today are using chatbots to solve problems dealing with banking statements and at McDonald’s, where an order kiosk will reduce the need for an order taker at the front desk. Behind the kiosk, McDonald’s uses humans to flip the burgers and package the fries. this week, I had my experience with AI involving my bank, which froze when I told a friend to send me money using Zelle. I registered with Zelle, to set up an account, then had to do a similar thing with my bank account. My grandson assured me that this process worked for him in a few minutes, and he has used it for several years without incident. He walked me through the setup. It went very quickly, and I was pleased. That is, until I tried to use it. It didn’t work. It was late in the evening, and I was not in the mood to tackle a problem, I put it off until morning.

The next morning, I put off having breakfast to get in line with my bank (BMO). When I often want to ask them something, I phone them and wait for the next operator. In some cases, I waited for forty minutes. I was too impatient this time, and after listening to the bank’s bullshit message to use the website too many times, I decided to try it. Getting connected to the website went easy. I took my time reading through all the services they offered through the many buttons on the web page. I found one that might help. I asked a question. but it was too complicated for the bot to understand. I simplified the question, it happened again. Finally, after several attempts to get an answer or a direction, the bot replied with a phone number to call for help. It was the same number I was on before.
Another line to wait in. Since my plan for the day was to solve this problem, I stayed on the line and waited while listening to music and reading emails on my desktop. The recording kept updating me with messages like If you don’t want to wait, push one, followed by the pound key, and we will call you back when your turn comes up. Good! I pushed one and the pound key. Then I had to give them my phone number. At least now I could do something else like play solitaire while waiting. Two hours later, my cell phone rings. I answered, and nothing. The line is dead. They lied, or else their AI isn’t very intelligent.

I started and called again, waiting for a real live operator to pick up. When it does, I go into mild shock and ask if the voice belongs to a real live person. The answer was yes. To make this long story shorter, it took this patient troubleshooter an hour and nine minutes to find the gremlin that was out of line. I will not yet concede that artificial intelligence is better than real human intelligence, nor will it in my lifetime.

The story didn’t end there. The next problem was verifying that it was me who signed up with the email address, and not some mindless bot.

The world seems to. be rushing into the AI scheme to save us from ourselves, just like they are doing with global warming and converting us to electric cars. The electric car rush is on the wane as our unintelligent humans are finally beginning to realize that if everyone trades in their gas-powered car today for an electric one, there is not enough electricity to go around.

Filed under: Biography, economy, Technology | Tagged: Chatbots, Customer Service, Gremlins |