Nothing makes me want to wrap my head in foil, pack up my goodies, and head for the hills like AI powered “Customer Service.”

Today, I had the rare and incomparable pleasure of trying to get our cable provider to replace a broken TV remote, which, in another era, would have amounted to a minor inconvenience and time-suck. But, in the hands of today’s corporate executives who shudder at the thought of having to train people to deal with customers, and choke at the idea of having to PAY them a decent wage (You mean we have to take care of them, too???), the task of serving customer needs has been almost entirely assigned to actual brainless twits.

***

When it was clear the remote had broken, I did my due diligence, logged into my account, put “Replace Remote Control” in the search box, and found, “[Our] Assistant can help you with that.” Gullible fool that I am, I believed it and opened a chat box.

Assistant: How can I help? Choose a topic.

I clicked on one that seemed related to “Equipment.”

Assistant: Thinking…. Which area would you like to troubleshoot? Choose from the following….

Me: (Writing) Broken Remote

Assistant: Thinking…. Would you like to…. (presenting more options)

Me: (Scanning, groaning, writing) Broken Remote

Assistant: I can pair your remote to the TV for you, and reset your cable box.

(Thumbs Up, and Thumbs Down boxes appear. I select Thumbs Down, and check, “Not Helpful”)

Me: (Writing) Broken Remote. Need new Remote Control.

Assistant: Thinking…. (Offering more irrelevant troubleshooting options)

And so it went, until I disconnected myself from their “Assistant,” found the phone number for Customer Service, and dialed it, only to get another AI Assistant.

If Dante were alive and writing the Inferno now, I’m certain he would have included a tenth circle of Hell for Technological Ills. I finally did manage to get a human on the line, except she kept putting me on hold while she tried to get “Approval” for a new remote. And, when she did break in every ten minutes, she tried to sell me service upgrades. After I had refused all of them, she said, “I’m sorry, but your request will have to go through our system and be reviewed before we can approve your new remote.”

I’ll spare you the diatribe I did not spare her. Let’s just say at the end of it she passed me off to a supervisor.

By the time a remote was ordered for me, almost two hours had passed.

***

I can’t help but see the lack of access to human help, when added to the staggering array of incompetent, dwindling, unaffordable services out there as yet another reason people are increasingly rude and bad-tempered. The handing off of everything to machines, when we most need humans has allowed us to forget how to be courteous, how to treat each other decently. It has left us feeling entitled to rage. And every time I hear someone gleefully extol the virtues of AI for organizing their files, or creating an image or poem or song, or writing a paper, or doing research, or diagnosing a malady, I want to tell them that nothing will land us in that tenth circle of Hell faster than depending on AI for tasks humans are simply better at.

As one of my former professors told me decades ago: the most important thing you can know about technology is when not to use it.

Food for thought. I’m still keeping a roll of foil handy….

Peace.

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