@mehanix Welcome to the neighbourhood!

@psneeze Jesus, the simple greedy deviousness of it. If only they'd put all that creative thinking and energy into something good. 'Don't be evil' yeah right.

@webidebi Yes! Even if AI were efficient and accurate and the best thing since the bee's knees and the cat's pyjamas and sliced bread, it's still unethical and an environmental catastrophe.

@psneeze That sounds extremely likely and greed-driven.

@ronanmcd Ah, this is good to know. I have been feeling very Skibereen Eagle-ish, writing my little mails of complaint to the AI-wielding companies. I am comforted to hear there are quite a few of us. The more the merrier, if we're to have any chance of getting companies to notice, let alone listen.

@psneeze It's both depressing and terrifying.

@webidebi Oh that's awful. Soul-destroying. Society-destroying, the way we're going. I am hearing this more and more often from people in different jobs and industries. Customers and contacts sending in slop, sending 20-page AI-generated mails with lots of irrelevant questions even for a simple query. Such a waste of everyone's time. Utterly depressed - yes, that resonates, I feel that way too.

@SorenMRiis @JD_Cunningham I do really hope that our little individual emails of praise do get through to the right people at the company at a strategic level, and that they also praise the staff involved.

@MakeAppPie That's awful. Exactly the kind of situation where you need help quickly and efficiently. It's also a simple, standard, You Have One Job task to solve for the customer - it's bananas to make it complicated for all human parties through unncessary AI.

@Nead @kimlockhartga @RealGene Fried gummy bears. And I thought deep-fried Mars Bars were the final frontier.

@dannyman I'll take my chances here in the heart of the reply thread and say: the insurance company is Gjensidige Forsikring. Norwegian, with a Danish subsidiary. I have never heard anything unethical about them. I sent a mail to them today, praising them for customer service and for their competent staff. And for instant human accessibility without an AI barrier at the start.

@dannyman I have never blogged, but I have a fondness for WordPress because when I first started following a few blogs in the early days of book blogs, they were always WordPress blogs. So I have a nice association there.

@dannyman Haha - well thank Odin for that, I'd be worried if you were one of that other lot over there

@jwcph Great point. It's a positive experience to just be taken seriously as a customer, to have a problem handled competently without time-wasting. I absolutely have had that experience myself - genuinely praising a company because their staff quickly and happily fixed a serious error the company itself had made. If they'd dragged their feet or thrown AI at the problem, I would have had an entirely different attitude afterwards.

@psneeze This bothers me too. So much AI-generated misinformation about everything from bus routes to what an insurance policy covers.

@WTL @bluegreenandfree Indeed

@fooflington Great point. It's a common after-work complaint now from many I know in different jobs and industries - that customers are making life difficult by sending long, complex, AI-written submissions and queries, full of irrelvant information and points. The waste of human time on either end is incredible.

@RegGuy

@RegGuy I love this so much. Take that AI - absolutely! @missmelanieh @kimlockhartga @Tattooed_Mummy

@JD_Cunningham This is my thinking too. It feels too small, but at the same time, if more of us keep doing it, maybe some companies will register what customers want.