Comment by dylan604
10 hours ago
The ever dreaded automated phone systems are more tolerable than the AI driven phone systems. The press 1 for... never tried to make you think someone was actually listening to you, yet the AI services are made to come across like you are talking to a human. Don't try to make people think it's a human.
I think the only place so far where I have actually preferred the AI version was when my phone provider switched from a "dumb" chat bot that ostensibly used natural language but rarely parsed anything successfully.
> Don't try to make people think it's a human.
Agreed.
A local pizza place (Tribute Pizza) switched its phone over to an AI assistant that goes out of its way to appear human to such a degree that it inserts random "restaurant bustle" sound effects into the call so it sounds like you're talking to someone standing in a crowded restaurant.
The subterfuge of layering in sound effects to make idiots think they were still talking to a human was a bridge too far and I swore off ever giving my business to them again.
Interesting, this reminds me a bit of TTS models that had poor quality training data inserting commercial jingles or background music into their output, although I would agree that in this case it sounds intentional.
Considering the many embarrassing failures huge fast food chains have had trying to get AI order takers in their drive-throughs I'd be very concerned about an AI at some random local pizza place getting my order accurately
with the keyboard typing and call center chatter... give me a break