I do think the main point of the article, that automations designed to cut corners and save costs erode our social bonds and the fabric of our society is a poignant one.
A lot of times, especially here on HN, we only accept things that can be backed up by facts or stats or a study of some kind, but we don't have (and cannot automate) such things for every possible hypothesis.
This seems like one of those things. Cost cutting by individual companies in this way hurts society as a whole. Maybe on paper those savings are returned to shareholders and maybe that leads to greater GDP per capita, etc. But the social bonds that fray when human interaction is deemed to precious or too expensive to waste on the average joe is real.
Don't really know just yet how to fix it. I too worry that this amazing technology (like many before it) will be abused by upper middle managers in the worst possible ways to make our societies worse...
If we are talking about a "society" then the priorities should be obvious. A society is not defined GDP per capita or shareholder values. These might have some value but even that is only secondary. By letting companies do what they want in the name of the second, we abandoned the first - and that's obvious when we see all the victim-shaming going around when we talk about homeless or jobless or just anyone impacted by shareholder value increasing politics.
a new, cutting-edge use case for enterprise AI: trying to prevent call center workers from “losing it” by showing them video montages of their family set to their favorite pop music after they have been barraged with angry callers
First Horizon Bank was able to replace many of its call center workers with an IVR (interactive voice response) system, to allows its call volume to balloon without hiring more of them.
The problem is, everybody absolutely hates IVR. It’s one of the most reviled forms of automation in existence, and this is why so many customers are livid by the time they reach the beleaguered call center workers who remain on hand.
A lot of times, especially here on HN, we only accept things that can be backed up by facts or stats or a study of some kind, but we don't have (and cannot automate) such things for every possible hypothesis.
This seems like one of those things. Cost cutting by individual companies in this way hurts society as a whole. Maybe on paper those savings are returned to shareholders and maybe that leads to greater GDP per capita, etc. But the social bonds that fray when human interaction is deemed to precious or too expensive to waste on the average joe is real.
Don't really know just yet how to fix it. I too worry that this amazing technology (like many before it) will be abused by upper middle managers in the worst possible ways to make our societies worse...