Comment by pkrecker

(All this assumes some some not-yet-here future where "AI agents" are less flaky than today's LLMs.)

Things like "call center jobs" are where "superior" gets muddy.

They can be superior for the business. The business does not want to spend money. Now they aren't paying a person, and they have to worry less about a sob story convincing their agent to make an exception. Health insurance company, for instance, where the life-saving treatment was declined. Refund of plane ticket because the flight was delayed and normally the policy would be to deny it but this particular person missed his father's funeral as a result, so the agent takes pity. So it's "superior" for the company because it entirely IS about saving money.

Hard to say those are superior for the customer. And most of us aren't the megacorp-owners here. We're the customers.

So yes, AI agents could be the logical next step in the "turn people into robots" march of bureaucracy. But that's not a good thing.

Human interactions, human judgement, human empathy - these are features, not bugs. Consider also that loneliness epidemic. Let's make it even worse! (In the short term "not talking to people" is being seen as a positive here - because we've already raised a few generations of scared, not-socially-equipped kids, since these are old trends. How is people-avoidance-maximization working?)

> AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.

Please don't use the present tense to describe a not yet realized future.

> less tedium

That may eventually happen, but most of the time current AI systems need a lot of handholding to reach human levels of accuracy. I personally find this kind of supervision extremely tedious, it’s more stressful to use a poor level 2 system than just drive yourself. Driving has surpassed that point, but it’s taken billions so extrapolating into other fields without that kind of investment is premature.

>AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.

Just wait until your human needs inside the bowels of some corporate or government bureaucracy, that no matter what will inevitably make either human or algorithmically generated mistakes, are being "attended" by some AI agent that can feel nothing, cares nothing and of course doesn't really think for itself or use common sense outside the bounds of formal rules, and you find yourself fucked over by this in some absurd way.

Imagine all the so-called customer service (almost entirely non-human) that Google shafts its users with, about which so many people on HN have complained, but writ much larger, in all kinds of far more vital user attention scenarios.

No thank you. Human bureaucrats are bad enough, but at least there's an avenue for empathy and flexibility in many cases.

The AI fawning on some comments here lives in a bubble of perfect expectations that will die a horrible death in the real world, or cause people horrible miseries in that same real world.

How is it better for the worker? They just go hungry instead

The problem with that kind of thinking is that "superior" is in the eye of the beholder.

An AI manager might be "superior" in the view of the executives of the company, but that AI manager's reports might feel very differently. From a societal perspective, the employees' feelings are what should matter most, but from a capitalist perspective, the executives won't care if workers are treated poorly, as long as the work gets done and profits go up.

And I think we already see the shit experience customers get when customer service jobs are replaced by AI. I doubt that will ever improve, by design.

Remember, also, that computers only deal with situations and problems that they are programmed to deal with. AI is a little different, but still suffers the same limitations in that they can only deal with things they're trained on. Humans can make exceptions and adapt to new situations. If we get to AGI, perhaps that problem will go away, but I expect we'll be granted many new problems to deal with instead.

lol. Sure.

I’ve seen three of these implementations in contact centers. AI drives lower satisfaction and lower cost. That business is about delivering defined level of service at the lowest possible cost.

The advantage of Waymo is that it’s a first party service that doesn’t hide behind the fig leaf of an independent contractor. Easier to regulate those nexus points than to figure out of some dudes 2015 Sienna is safe or reliable.

Knowing how economics works, this will lead to specialization.

Human drivers will become more likely to offer extra services like drugs, company and entertainment. Silent careful drivers will be driven out by Waymo.

In-car product vending will come soon enough I’m sure.

It could be good business for AI cars to start doing this too. You can't put an algorithm in prison, and the programmers can just say its a black box and nobody could possibly understand how it trained itself to do it. The company makes money off the extra rides, while having plausible deniability because maybe the customer just wanted a ride. IANAL.

Baha

Why didn’t you end the ride and get out?

>> Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.

Desperation isn't an excuse for risking the life of your passenger and other road users or pedestrians.

Probably undiagnosed diabetes. My dad would do the same and he’d have a regular night of sleep

So instead of giving my money to Google, I should get in a car where someone could easily kill me and others?

No thanks.

I think we're in a lot of trouble as a society if our choices are between a) automating away people's jobs and giving the savings to rich company executives, and b) getting into a car that's being driven unsafely.

Ooh I know the ones you're talking about. YouTube has started recommending those to my elderly family members. They are pure brainrot. I suspect AI generated too considering the sheer volume the YouTube channels in question put out.

If aggressive driving is 5% faster, then your expensive investment (the cars and the business) might get a few percent better utilisation (assuming liabilities don't increase much). More likely to see aggressive driving on way to pickup?

Capital costs matter, and how quickly you get ROI matters.

Electric engines are very efficient; aerodynamic drag is by far the biggest source of efficiency loss. The most efficient traversal for a fixed time interval is fast acceleration / deceleration with a reduced top speed. OTOH the most efficient for same time interval for a gas vehicle would be a slightly higher top speed but lower acceleration / deceleration.

People do this? I'd expect them to at least click the belt in and to sit on it. Personally I prefer to not die violently so I just strap in normally.

You could easily avoid the "noise pollution" by driving safely.