First of all, it will make cold calling way, way worse. Time to ramp up restrictions, fines and other penalties for that kind of stuff.

When it comes to tech support call centers, some may actually improve. Not because the technology is so superior, but just because the current support simply sucks, and any change would be an improvement. And then they must actually work, i.e. solve the customers problems. On top of that, there is that case where an AI call center made expensive promises (IIRC if promised a car for $1 or something like that), and the judge made the company uphold this deal.

I will not be shedding a tear if people no longer have to work in such a soul crushing menial job. Fuck around and findout what happens millions of people lose their jobs all at once.

but anyway this is just some more ai hype stock manipulation shit.

It’s a soul destroying job anyway.

The fact that generative AI is being used as a means of large corporations consolidating even more wealth rather than attempting to free the working class from shitty, menial jobs shows that we’re way the fuck off with how we conceptualize of “work”.

This should be a good thing, but for lots of people this will suck.

Call centres exist because people can’t get the help they need by searching. Take away call centres, and you’re just making it more difficult for customers.

If by “Decimate” you mean “Reduce by a tenth” then it’s already happened.

There are already stories about companies being sued because their AI gave advice that caused the customer to act in a manner detrimental to themselves. (Something about 'plane flight refunds being available if I remember correctly).

Then when they contacted the company to complain (perhaps get the promised refund), they were told that there was no such policy at their company. The customer had screenshots. The AI had wholesale hallucinated a policy.

We all know how this is going to go. AI left, right and centre until it costs companies more in AI hallucination lawsuits than it does to employ people to do it.

And all the while they’ll be bribing lobbying government representatives to make AI hallucination lawsuits not a thing. Or less of a thing.

I know this isn’t a common takeaway, but I’m all for it.

The current state of call centers is EXCRUCIATINGLY painful for consumers and only exists in the form it does to commodify US for the company. We tolerate the shit experience of call centers, so companies don’t need to pay more money to give us a better experience. That’s why they exist, the only reason. If firing them all and turning them into AI makes the experience even SLIGHTLY less painful than calling your local public assistance help line, I’m all for it. If I can bypass 4 separate phone tree selection menus with 3 minutes of wait time with the crackling loud wait music between being passed around departments, I’m all for it. These are shit dead end jobs with no upside whatsoever.

Extremely ironical that they used an AI generated pie chart in the article that couldn’t even distinguish the colours between choices

Wait until generative AI tells a customer to touch electricity.