I just wish there was a right tool, because I don’t feel traditional search is it either after the era of SEO maximization. IMO, part of why AI search is popular is because traditional search has degraded so much.
I will agree degredation happened, but Google was way more reliable before AI started “helping”. Now it makes up its own write-up about whatever you search for and gives you little of actual useful info.
I think the closest thing we have to a “right tool” is your brain. If you’re looking for a product your first thought shouldn’t be “let me ask Chat GPT” it should be something like“let me ask someone who sells or is familiar with this product.”
Tools like search engines can be useful for finding the right people to talk to.
I think people like interacting with a computers instead of people because it’s “more convenient.” Many computer systems smooth over the friction that we experience in the real world.
One of the common topics for internet comics these days seems to be anxiety people have about making phone calls, and I think search engines and chat bots present a similar dynamic.
Yes, maybe people don’t experience as much anxiety when using a chatbot or interactive voice recording, but ultimately those tools won’t always work and people will eventually need to work through their anxiety to accomplish what they want which involves interacting with other humans (or choose not to engage with people and become bitter and isolated.)
Depends. I am think the fact that we can access a lot of diverse sources of information is the greatest part of the internet. For example, I do not want to ask a person how this obscure part of this device works, I want to quickly know how this device works. Usually, I tend to use both classic search engines and the hallucination machines, because both can shortcut hours of research or be completely useless, depending on the question.
If these asshole companies would connect me to a person instead of a bot with worse hearing than me and stressful timing in between slow, garbled, repetitive prompts when I call, I’d have no issue whatsoever using a good old fashioned phone to set out and solve my problems.
Since I’m equally likely to deal with a bugged out robot whether I type at it or yell at it, I may as well exhaust the options where I can read instead of being forced to wait to be talked down to by a machine. (Clarify: I DO NOT use ChatGPT or other LLMs, I only use search engines)
The stress comes from not being able to talk to/reach people reliably by phone, not at the thought of just talking to a person over a call.
Companies think if a user gets frustrated and hangs up from the support line, that’s a good thing. One less complaint to deal with.
Even if the user is actually a prospective customer. They don’t track that.
Maybe we should start giving legal consequences for bad customer service. If you can’t get your complaint resolved over the phone in an hour, you can just claim your money back in court. Submit the recorded phone conversation, instant win. Make it easier to sue a company than to deal with their robots.
I just wish there was a right tool, because I don’t feel traditional search is it either after the era of SEO maximization. IMO, part of why AI search is popular is because traditional search has degraded so much.
I will agree degredation happened, but Google was way more reliable before AI started “helping”. Now it makes up its own write-up about whatever you search for and gives you little of actual useful info.
I think the closest thing we have to a “right tool” is your brain. If you’re looking for a product your first thought shouldn’t be “let me ask Chat GPT” it should be something like“let me ask someone who sells or is familiar with this product.”
Tools like search engines can be useful for finding the right people to talk to.
I think people like interacting with a computers instead of people because it’s “more convenient.” Many computer systems smooth over the friction that we experience in the real world.
One of the common topics for internet comics these days seems to be anxiety people have about making phone calls, and I think search engines and chat bots present a similar dynamic.
Yes, maybe people don’t experience as much anxiety when using a chatbot or interactive voice recording, but ultimately those tools won’t always work and people will eventually need to work through their anxiety to accomplish what they want which involves interacting with other humans (or choose not to engage with people and become bitter and isolated.)
Depends. I am think the fact that we can access a lot of diverse sources of information is the greatest part of the internet. For example, I do not want to ask a person how this obscure part of this device works, I want to quickly know how this device works. Usually, I tend to use both classic search engines and the hallucination machines, because both can shortcut hours of research or be completely useless, depending on the question.
If these asshole companies would connect me to a person instead of a bot with worse hearing than me and stressful timing in between slow, garbled, repetitive prompts when I call, I’d have no issue whatsoever using a good old fashioned phone to set out and solve my problems.
Since I’m equally likely to deal with a bugged out robot whether I type at it or yell at it, I may as well exhaust the options where I can read instead of being forced to wait to be talked down to by a machine. (Clarify: I DO NOT use ChatGPT or other LLMs, I only use search engines)
The stress comes from not being able to talk to/reach people reliably by phone, not at the thought of just talking to a person over a call.
Companies think if a user gets frustrated and hangs up from the support line, that’s a good thing. One less complaint to deal with.
Even if the user is actually a prospective customer. They don’t track that.
Maybe we should start giving legal consequences for bad customer service. If you can’t get your complaint resolved over the phone in an hour, you can just claim your money back in court. Submit the recorded phone conversation, instant win. Make it easier to sue a company than to deal with their robots.