Comment by XCSme

1 hour ago

That's a good idea.

I might go more into table-tennis coaching, probably people would still prefer to be coached by a real person and not a robot for a very long time.

Yeah, I think if you're a nice person that people enjoy being around then there will be plenty of opportunities.

Funnily enough, I used to work on pre-LLM natural language processing at an insurance company about 10 years ago. One of the call centre staff quipped about us taking their jobs. I hadn't given it a moment's thought beforehand, but I said something then that I think still stands today. I said that what we are trying to do is automate the boring parts of your job so that you have more time to do the part that really matters: being there, being human, for someone in their time of need.

When my mum died at home this year, my dad called the local GP practice to let someone know and was greeted by a chatbot. This is someone who has just lost their wife of 40 years and doesn't really know what to do. Imagine having to deal with a chatbot in this time. It didn't work and he got frustrated and gave up, exasperated.

I took over but instead called a local hospice charity that had been involved and got straight through to a person. In no more than 60 seconds I had said everything that needed to be said, it was acknowledged with genuine sympathy and the wheels were in motion for the next steps.

This is what we need society to be like. We should use computers for the things they are good at, but we don't need them to be like people, because we have people for that.