There’s a lot of chatter about AI (artificial intelligence) taking over our lives.
Much of the worry is that someday it will make jobs disappear and give us less daily interaction with our fellow citizens of Earth.
HEL-LO! Have you ventured out into the world lately or even attempted to communicate on the phone or internet? The robots and electronic gizmos have already had their revolution and they won. Beat our butts.
The machines have plotted our downfall and have kept just a skeleton crew of humans to help them, usually the dumbest ‘cause they are easier to keep on a short leash. Just don’t ask them where the front door or restroom is.
I notice the other day that H**e Dep*t (name changed to protect the guilty) has done away with almost all the live people at the registers.
The idea of “self service” makes sure they only need to hire two people where these companies used to have 12. And those two are only there to look over our shoulder to make sure we don’t try any funny business.
The Corporate Overseers discovered (surprise, surprise!) that people might “miss” the scan on that $50 hammer. (The one that cost them 32 cents to make in China.) That woman in the orange apron standing behind you with her nose almost touching your ear probably has handcuffs in her pocket.
Many more stores are doing this. I hate it. I generally will not play. At least until I get my invitation to the employee Christmas party. Pretty soon they will ask me to fill in for another customer who called in sick.
My doctor’s practice was bought out by some medical group from New York City (that alone should be a red flag.) The office staff has been shrunk to half. And when I was there recently, instead of the counter girl checking me in, I was handed an iPad so I could fill out five pages of nonsense myself – information they already had – while a live person sat there looking at me. Some day a conveyor belt will bring me the pad, girl gone. I’m in South Florida as I write this. At least the pad speaks English. Surprisingly.
Humans will be extinct. It won’t take as long as you think to get there.
A certain well known burger chain now has you ordering at a kiosk at the back of the line… already. As soon as someone develops that conveyor belt I was talking about… “Hand me my burger, Zyklon 34 Model 3.”
If I were an engineer, I would be designing all sorts of complex conveyor belts and join the billionaire’s club. The only necessary skill providing a place for your low level human worker these days is: 1. Pick up object. 2. Hand object to person. My conveyor belt will do it for 73 cents an hour.
The “phone answering person” in business is close to being gone. When you call a number to order something, to make an appointment, or to straighten out a problem, you don’t get a person.
To earn you the right to speak to a human being, you first must run the electronic gauntlet.
For about 15 minutes to an hour you have to punch phone buttons or answer an FBI interrogation by some electronic piece of junk.
So, then you finally get a live person. You crank up your phone volume to cut through the East Asian accent… if they know enough English for you to piece together some version of what they’re trying to tell you.
Caution: Do not use American slang! Their copy of Babbel, the language learning program, uses a form of English used in tearooms in 17th century London.
The war to do away with people is over and they have beat me. Badly.
Other than the lawn guys (seen out the window) I haven’t seen an outside human in days.
And here I sit talking to the machines, telling them to call the machines at Amazon and send me that staple remover I used to get at Office Max.
Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.
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