The following report is by Futurism’s The Byte:
Tough But Necessary
Suumit Shah, a 31-year-old CEO of an e-commerce platform called Dukaan based in India, is getting torn to shreds online for firing 90 percent of the company’s customer support staff after arguing that an AI chatbot had outperformed them.
It was an unusually callous announcement that clearly didn’t sit well with plenty of netizens, as Insider reports.
We had to layoff [sic] 90 percent of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.
He tweeted.
In a lengthy Twitter thread laden with screenshots from action movies such as “iRobot” and “Limitless,” Shah argued that response times plummeted from over two hours to less than two minutes thanks to the AI chatbot.
Talk To The Bot
But not everybody is buying the CEO’s excuse for laying off dozens of employees, allegedly cutting his customer support budget to just $100 a month.
Make no mistake. The support team was laid off here because business is failing and funding is dry. Not because of AI.
One Twitter user wrote.
Others pointed out the quality of Dukaan’s customer service plummeted as well.
It wasn’t answering as I needed it to. I tried tweaking my questions several ways because I know it was a bot. It just didn’t reply properly. It left me frustrated and ultimately didn’t bother renewing my premium plan.
Another user wrote.
I’m terrified of the future where we will never speak to a human again in customer support which means we will never get a problem solved you’ll just be passed around between bots.
One Redditor wrote.
No Regrets
Shah, however, told Insider that he had no choice — though he did say he regretted posting about the layoffs on social media.
Over time, everybody will start doing this. It’s not just us. Maybe I’m just too straightforward to have put it on Twitter.
He said.
And of course, he’s not entirely wrong. Plenty of tech companies have announced layoffs while also making huge investments in AI tech, Insider pointed out.
The prognosis is pretty grim as well, with researchers warning that plenty more jobs will be taken away from humans and given to bots in the near future.
But gloating about laying off most of your customer support staff on Twitter isn’t just inhumane. It also shows how little tech CEOs like Shah actually care about the people that work for them.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Whatever for the alleged reasons, AI is rapidly taking over everything, by design. I remember when I was younger my family, my grandfather especially, really encouraged me to get into the tech field because it was only going to innovate and therefore the potential for high-yielding returns seemed to be guaranteed. I pursued it for a while but eventually ditched it. But if I had my job would be replaced at this point or very soon.
Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Ecclesiastes 7:29
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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Not all jobs can be replaced especially when it comes to the trades
Oh I know, I was referring to a lot of “white collar” and desk job stuff. “Blue collar” and manual labor will not be as easily replaced, at least not for a while yet. I used to work fulltime for my dad’s Drywall company, and there is no way that specific skill trade is getting replaced, at least not for a while.
Amen
This guy is slow, but this was 5 years ago. At this point, I don’t think any job is safe. https://interestingengineering.com/video/this-creepy-but-handy-humanoid-robot-installs-drywall-by-itself
Oh good grief!
“I need a technical support person”
“You are having problems? I will do a 10 minute checkup on your system. Please wait.”
“You did that 3 times already, I need to talk to a human person.”
“We are still conducting an audit of your system, please wait…”
…
..
.
Bots are ridiculously worthless and frustrating and if you do not have humans to go to, you will just lose customers through frustration.
Was that from Comcast? Had the exact same experience that it just did circles around wanting to do a modem health check that should last 10 minutes…. 2 hours later, still wanting to do a modem health check…..
I agree, Allen.
These bots are such retarded and pathetic machines, we want people, biological mankind, not techno-pinocchio!
You ain’t seen nothing yet!! Organoid Intelligence anyone (OI) ??
https://spectrum.ieee.org/organoid-intelligence-computing-on-brain