Went to get some laundry services and called the number. I was leery as I am in Toronto area and number was Nova Scotia.

A male sounding person answered and I started posing questions about laundry services they offered. This guy was the politest person I had heard in over a decade. Concise but vague. I thought it was VOIP delay as there was a 3-5 second pause for him to reply but realized that it was too consistent. It was a fucking AI attendant talking at me. I said stick your AI, I will not be using your services and hung up.

Grrrrr me want human.

  • BeBopALouie@lemmy.caOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    17 hours ago

    I would pay more for a human without a second thought.

    Fuck AI

    Edit: what do you really save when you personally save for example $.30 on a transaction when the AI spends five dollars in energy?

    • Canaconda@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      16 hours ago

      what do you really save when you personally save for example $.30 on a transaction when the AI spends five dollars in energy?

      Exactly. The economy right now is a big ball and cup game so that the rich can convince workers to keep funding their kleptocracy.

      We pay taxes for public services and utilities that generate private profits while the rich get to benefit off the infrastructure that we funded. The cups, the balls, and the god damn table were all built and paid for by the working class.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      14 hours ago

      I would pay more for a human without a second thought.

      Fuck AI

      Edit: what do you really save when you personally save for example $.30 on a transaction when the AI spends five dollars in energy?

      Your scales are off. The fully loaded cost of a human worker that can answer customer service questions is probably $60k-$100k per year. That worker can only talk to one customer at a time. That worker can’t cover an entire shift by themselves because you have to have extra workers to accommodate sick/vacation time. So the cost to the company to service the customer service request is potentially $15-$40.

      The cost of the AI to provide customer service (we’re not talking about quality in this statement) is maybe $1 to $5 per customer serviced.

      The cost of the automated support is about an order of magnitude less than the human worker. Those higher costs for the human have to be rolled into the cost of the product or service.

      This might mean you pay $10 or more for the product or service (possibly much more if multiple customer service events are expected for the product/service). Likely not 30 cents saving you’re estimating.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          13 hours ago

          Then why are they asking people to stop having showers in cities to power the AI?

          Because those communities have not structured their laws/regulations/bylaws to properly capture the true cost of utilities to its consumers and price it accordingly. Users should have fairly low rates up to a certain point, and then higher rates for higher consumption. The higher the consumption should cost exponentially more. Think of “gas guzzler” taxes on inefficient cars. Up to now these water utilities probably haven’t needed to make these changes.

          If the water utilities price it appropriately high for the data center provider one of two things will happen:

          • the data center provider will not build there and go elsewhere
          • the data center provider will switch to a “closed loop” system so they don’t have to use so much water.

          The reason DCs don’t do that second one by default is because “open loop” (extremely water hungry) is significantly cheaper to operate.

          • BeBopALouie@lemmy.caOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            13 hours ago

            How are we going to deal with the 1000’s of people who end up utter brain dead meat bags because they are no longer using their brains?

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              13 hours ago

              I agree. This will be a problem. However very few people will care about this question when they’re faced with two products/services that are nearly equivalent, but the human derived one costs significantly more.

      • BeBopALouie@lemmy.caOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        As we know, people are stupid and they won’t manage their city/ county whatever’s utility management. So I guess it would be more beneficial to keep that in mind and not do the AI crap or are people going to magically become smart?

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 hours ago

          As we know, people are stupid and they won’t manage their city/ county whatever’s utility management.

          Well thats up to you. I interact with my water co-op yearly at our annual meetings of operations and budgets. This is how I have all this info on Data Center water usage. We have two DCs being built in our co-op coverage territory as we speak. One is a regional colo provider “closed loop” system and uses only marginally more water than an office building of cube farms. The other is an AWS datacenter that is going “open loop” and wants the most water at the worst time (hottest time) of the year. We’re putting the the screws to them and charging them out the yang for it. Its going to pay for additional water infrastructure elsewhere to serve more of the co-op customers and allow us to build an expensive pipeline from one end of the service area to the other.

          So I guess it would be more beneficial to keep that in mind and not do the AI crap or are people going to magically become smart?

          Make sure you don’t use crypto either then. Its been a larger offender of electricity and water waste than AI has yet.

          • BeBopALouie@lemmy.caOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            12 hours ago

            It’s up to me? I am not in control of every single city or county especially in the states. More than 60% of the states do not even have basic reading skills. Sure they will do it right /s. Now your just being silly. Never used crypto, never will. Have a good one.

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              12 hours ago

              It’s up to me?

              Your actions are up to you, yes. Whether you choose to interact or not in your water utilities or regulation boards is up to you.

              I am not in control of every single city or county especially in the states. More than 60% of the states do not even have basic reading skills. Now you just being silly.

              Getting involved and taking action locally is silly? I have no idea what your literacy comment has to do with anything we’re talking about.

              Have a good one.

              Thanks, you too. If you’d like to join me at my co-op annual water meeting, its in July. Hit me up and we’ll go together. If you were a member, you could even run for the board yourself and directly affect water policy in the county. You won’t be able to vote for board members because you’re not a member of the co-op like I am, but you can see how it works and where we have a voice.

              • BeBopALouie@lemmy.caOP
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                11 hours ago

                Sure I can get involved locally I am talking about the dumb and corrupt govts that will continue to mismanage that are 1000’s of km away from you and me. Neither of us can control them.