[HN Gopher] Human_fallback
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Human_fallback
Author : e12e
Score : 145 points
Date : 2022-12-13 08:06 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nplusonemag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nplusonemag.com)
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| this is truly beautiful. also remarkable how a text about this
| topic can be so emotional and yet so distant and neutral,
| whenever other authors would fall back to platitudes or
| demonization of some development, she manages to step back and
| take another perspective instead. and its not just focussing on
| the human side but also a perfect portrayal of state of the art
| of production level agent systems.
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| What a brilliantly written story
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| _Very_ engaging. The life of mechanical turks should should
| inspire more creators.
|
| Unfortunately, there is nothing to comment about, so the topic
| will quickly sink. Just read and enjoy.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| I love this article but simultaneously it says so little. I think
| that she and I have very different values, and to me this would
| be "I had a job at a call center for 9 months after college."
|
| I think the space between her and I is what makes this such a
| good read.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Wonderful story. I can emphasize with the emotional drainage that
| comes with getting many small glimpses into peoples' lives.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I once assisted the introduction of electronic invoicing in a
| project. The customer required a certain EDI format but allowed
| (for a limited time) PDF invoices to be sent directly to a
| processor specialized in fully automated processing of legacy
| invoice documents. The PDF had to fulfill strict requirements,
| most importantly containing real text and not scanned images.
|
| As neither the EDI requirement nor the PDF format requirements
| could be met in time, scanned paper invoices were sent.
|
| Lo and behold, all invoices were paid in time.
|
| I never got rid of the thought, that the invoice processor,
| which, boasted their progressive fully automated analysis
| capabilities, was most probably a small army of underpaid humans.
| Didn't help that they were based in low cost EU country.
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| Great read. I had a glorified call center job in policy research
| a decade ago. Did phone surveys on behalf of govt departments and
| NGOs to gauge the efficacy of various programs. The so-called
| rigor of the studies required us to engage with participants in
| similarly robotic ways. Always hated it when somebody had a
| specific, actionable complaint or was otherwise desperate for
| help, and all I could do was bring them back on script, with the
| promise that their misery would be reflected in the statistics
| and promote incremental improvements.
| uplifter wrote:
| > In training, we had been briefed on how to sound like Brenda
| [The AI Chatbot]. Brenda was chipper and casual, but
| professionally guarded. She was female and most certainly white,
| though no one had explicitly told us so. She said things like
| Sounds great!, Perfect!, and Sorry to hear that. She always
| brought the conversation back around to real estate.
|
| > Once, a shift supervisor told me that a good tactic in these
| situations was to lean into Brenda's robotic qualities. A little
| strategic obtuseness went a long way, and if the tenant still
| wouldn't let up, I could start to repeat myself on a loop.
|
| Reminds me of how Baudrillard said the simulation of the world
| will come to blend and replace the real one until the distinction
| loses all meaning.
|
| I will never be able to talk to a call agent again and not
| consider the origins of their turns of phrase.
| wincy wrote:
| "Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed" has
| spread across the land like a mind virus.
| ryanmjacobs wrote:
| Well written story. Worth the read.
| bestest wrote:
| So much training data everywhere. Wonder how long till we have AI
| chats for things like these, and much more -- psychologists,
| counsellors and whatnot.
| ilaksh wrote:
| ChatGPT can literally do it now and probably so can davinci3
| (very similar to ChatGPT). Also character.ai (lambda) is pretty
| close to being able to.
|
| The only challenge really is filtering out occasional
| hallucinations.
| Tepix wrote:
| Well written, but also quite depressing!
|
| The mundaneness of our existance when viewed through her eyes.
| How different we see ourselves!
| elil17 wrote:
| Is this fiction or non-fiction?
| pxeger1 wrote:
| Does it matter?
| elil17 wrote:
| Well, I'm curious about it - I guess it's not all that
| important to me.
| mxuribe wrote:
| Why don't you experience the article to see if it meets your
| definition of fiction or non-fiction?
|
| I'm real!
|
| Sorry to hear that.
|
| Why don't you experience the article to see if it meets your
| definition of fiction or non-fiction?
| bigger_inside wrote:
| great text. It reminds me a little of Ancillary Justice: Human
| body turned into AI ancillary...
| mollems wrote:
| An interesting story, whether fact or fiction. The difficulty of
| receiving messages as "Brenda" from people in various forms of
| real-life distress and not being able to respond to them reminded
| me of playing the game "Eliza," possibly the most un-Zachlike-
| like game ever released by Zachtronics:
| https://www.zachtronics.com/eliza/
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(page generated 2022-12-13 23:01 UTC)