Super Artificial Intelligence Renaissance or Requiem by Malcolm Brockbank

Author:Malcolm Brockbank [Brockbank, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2020-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Your custom is important to us...

Given the wide range and volume of this catalogue of errors what cunning plans are the major companies developing to deal with this list of failures and incompetence. Tightening security perhaps, improving staff training or maybe upgrading hardware and software protocols? Not so you might notice.

However what you might notice here is that companies such as Argos, Amazon and even Sainsbury’s have decided to implement such pro-active schemes as simply making it much harder for customers to complain. Whether it’s about services, goods, security issues or pretty much anything else it’s now becoming much more difficult to get your voice heard.

This is the technical equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing ‘La La La La - I'm not listening, I'm not listening’ when someone is desperately trying to attract your attention. Perhaps if no one can complain then maybe there’s nothing to complain about, perhaps.

This cunning plan has been implemented by removing the options to register a complaint by email from their websites and re-directing customers to make phone calls instead. If they do complain by phone, users then are encouraged to send written letters or discuss the complaint with an automated chatbot.

After all this they still have the nerve to project their companies as being caring, working for us, there to help and all the plethora of feel good phrases which go to make up the usual advertising sound bites.

Adverts are filled with soft piano music or gently whistled tunes whilst cartoon Koala bears are shown getting tangled up in toilet rolls or horses gallop dramatically along beach fronts. This entire facade is generated in an attempt to make customers feel valued and cared for whilst the reality is almost the diametric opposite.

This so-called business approach is pretty much encapsulated by the ubiquitous messages such as ‘We’re extremely busy at the moment’ (ie we don’t hire enough staff) and ‘your custom is important to us’ (but not so important that we’ll divert finances away from our shareholders in the direction of our customers).

We all understand that businesses are in business, as it were to make money, but it seems that the majority of people would prefer a shot of straight talking than the endless stream of hypocrisy that companies spout in an attempt to increase or maintain their customer base. If this is indeed the best we can possibly do, then in the face of a growing AI culture the future for almost everyone may turn out to be very bleak.

The descriptions of apps, systems and developments outlined earlier might seem a little dry but the purpose here is simply to demonstrate exactly how deeply entrenched in our everyday living such systems have become.

If you consider the wide range of human activities, from sport to finance, health and education and the 1001 things that we find ourselves involved with, it’s very difficult to think of a single one where computers are not in some way involved.

Even the classics such as art, poetry and literature are beginning to feel their impact.

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