Waiting on not-hold

[Xan]

I contacted a company for an insurance quote by filling out a form online. Very quickly I got a phone call from them (fine). The lady was collecting just a bit more information before forwarding me along to somebody else.

I answered her handful of questions and she said she'd wait with me while waiting for the other guy.

She asked what the weather was like. I said something like "oh, it's warm today, 80 degrees". She said that in southern California where she is it's almost as warm, 70 degrees. I was trying to drop hints that I'd just rather wait quietly but she had a response to everything. The whole interaction was maybe 60 seconds, before the other guy joined. That was right about when she said "Yes, my friend in Texas said she bought three bags of groceries and it cost $150! Crazy." I was just thinking "WTF are you talking about" when I realized this must have been an AI (that is, fake) person the whole time.

If not for the small talk, I would absolutely never have noticed. And even if I had known it was an AI, I might have been fine with it asking questions rather than dealing with a prerecorded system or whatever. But being tricked into making smalltalk with a dang computer made me feel pretty stupid.

[yankees60]

I contacted a company for an insurance quote by filling out a form online. Very quickly I got a phone call from them (fine). The lady was collecting just a bit more information before forwarding me along to somebody else.

I answered her handful of questions and she said she'd wait with me while waiting for the other guy.

She asked what the weather was like. I said something like "oh, it's warm today, 80 degrees". She said that in southern California where she is it's almost as warm, 70 degrees. I was trying to drop hints that I'd just rather wait quietly but she had a response to everything. The whole interaction was maybe 60 seconds, before the other guy joined. That was right about when she said "Yes, my friend in Texas said she bought three bags of groceries and it cost $150! Crazy." I was just thinking "WTF are you talking about" when I realized this must have been an AI (that is, fake) person the whole time.

If not for the small talk, I would absolutely never have noticed. And even if I had known it was an AI, I might have been fine with it asking questions rather than dealing with a prerecorded system or whatever. But being tricked into making smalltalk with a dang computer made me feel pretty stupid.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dualstow]

Amazing! I would totally chat with an AI if stuck on hold. Happy to be duped, temporarily.

[Jack Jones]

1-800-chat-gpt was just released.

[I Shrugged]

1-800-chat-gpt was just released.

Thanks, I had to try it. The conversation made sense, if a bit facile. The delivery was the biggest giveaway. About like hearing from Siri.

[Jack Jones]

1-800-chat-gpt was just released.

Thanks, I had to try it. The conversation made sense, if a bit facile. The delivery was the biggest giveaway. About like hearing from Siri.

Yeah I’m patiently waiting for Siri to enter the present era. It seems like Apple understands its strength here: incorporating personal context (e.g. text message history) into AI responses, while preserving privacy by evaluating responses on the phone rather than the cloud. I think they’ll get there.