Comment by Mordisquitos
4 hours ago
I am not impacted by this issue on either side, but I am in the "dehumanising" camp, so here are my opinions:
> Is it dehumanizing to Filipinos that Filipinos probably now do their job more efficiently without having to learn an accent that they are not exposed to?
It's already demeaning to expect them to "learn an accent", unless their job description is to literally pretend they are from a different culture (e.g. if they were actors). Introducing an "AI" middleman to change their voice is demeaning and dehumanising.
> Is it dehumanizing to Filipinos that they no longer enjoy having their accent heard as a externality of a counterfactual arrangement?
It is dehumanising to any person that their own human voice is no longer heard when performing a job involving human contact.
> Is it dehumanizing to the customers that the company does not expect their customers to be cosmopolitan enough to understand a foreign accent with ease?
Not quite dehumanising, but it is certainly patronising that the company has an opinion as to what voice their customers can or cannot understand. And if the company is hiring customer service agents whose accents are a serious hinderance to understanding, I would argue that their hires are not likely to accurately understand the very customers they are supposed to assist.
>Is it dehumanizing to the customers that the customers are now more sensorily shielded from a current-day reality regarding globalized providers of service?
Not dehumanising, but again patronising, and also disrespectful and borderline dishonest.
I won't get into the final two points, as those are prior to the accent-middleman "AI".
> It's already demeaning to expect them to "learn an accent"
Uh, what? Excuse me?
The purpose of spoken language is communication. Accents can frustrate or enhance communication. In this case, conforming to the accent of the client enhances communication, because it is what the client is familiar with.
You do realize that the obligations of service are on the agent, right? It is the agent, as representative of the company providing a service, who is serving the client. If the aim of an agent is to assist a client, then using an accent that is more intelligible to the client is part of serving them.
You might as well claim that - given that language is part of culture - learning to speak another language at all is "pretending" that you're from a different culture. It's a ridiculous take.
> It is dehumanising to any person that their own human voice is no longer heard when performing a job involving human contact.
What does this even mean? What is your "own human voice" here? Accents are learned. They are conventional, even if they have objective properties that allow them to be compared. An agent's job isn't about him; it is about the client. It's not about "being heard" (whatever that means), but being understood by the client within the context of the purpose of the job.
Imagine if diplomats thought the way you do. Diplomats serve and represent their country, just as agents serve and represent their company. It is in the interest of the diplomat, his country, and the other party to communicate as effectively as possible with the other party.
> Not quite dehumanising, but it is certainly patronising that the company has an opinion as to what voice their customers can or cannot understand.
This, too, is nonsensical. Given that companies record calls, it is fair to assume that the company has statistical evidence concerning the accents of their agents and how well they're understood by their clients.
Now, if you want to criticize the use of AI in such cases on independent grounds, maybe you can make a case. I don't think it would be a very strong case, as this is such a trivial matter. But you cannot claim that learning accents is "dehumanizing". Accent is part of language. If you wish to communicate with a people, you need to speak a common language. That generally means learning their language. The better you speak that language, the better you can communicate with them. If you are serving, the burden is on you to speak in a way that can assist understanding. It's that simple.
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> It's already demeaning to expect them to "learn an accent"
The concept of an accent is broad, but at least part of it you need to learn together with the language, as speaking a non-native language with a thick accent is partly based on the fact that you have yet to learn.
Without being exhaustive, things that might fall into the "speaks with an accent" concept in this thread: