Rendered at 20:29:25 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
flax 1 hours ago [-]
I'm probably in the minority, but I do not want a "connection" with a business. I want transactional interactions that actually work.
That is something that AI is not giving us today. By design. Companies are not switching to AI customer service because it's better or cheaper for the same service. They are choosing to replace customer service with AI chat bots that simulate the customer service experience without actually providing the service part.
kentm 22 minutes ago [-]
> I'm probably in the minority, but I do not want a "connection" with a business. I want transactional interactions that actually work.
Every time a business tries to make a "connection" its really just an avenue to exploit or manipulate me. I've never had them making a connection for my benefit (i.e. take a hit to their bottom line).
I'm not asking for altruism but I am asking for them to drop the pretense and quit bullshitting me.
drob518 17 minutes ago [-]
Then they’re doing it wrong. That’s a faux “connection” that just serves the business and not you. I would bet that if you experienced true connection, you’d love it, but you’ve been scammed by fraudsters so many times that you are suspicious of anything that doesn’t feel strictly transactional.
Terr_ 38 minutes ago [-]
An "accountability sink" [0] where a major feature of the machine is to cast blame into the void.
Definitely! One exemple is Grab, in all Southeast Asia: what people like is that the app is fluid, and will get you from A to B.
There is no marketing like Uber did sometimes of like: "personal service, free water bottle", and it's still killing it.
Of course, I personally always enjoy a chat with the driver, but many people I know prefer actually not talking.
fxtentacle 44 minutes ago [-]
The grab app shows un-skippable ads. And some taxis even have ads "based on your interests" playing on a TV in front of your seat. I found their "no marketing" ;) to be almost too much.
elevaet 17 minutes ago [-]
Or Gojek!
Eridrus 31 minutes ago [-]
I dunno, I talk to the Doordash bot, it gives me a refund for the failed delivery because it didn't score me as doing fraud, I don't care there was no human involved. It's certainly an upgrade over the menu-driven approach that has no room for deviation.
fidotron 48 minutes ago [-]
> I want transactional interactions that actually work.
One of the great lies of the modern world is that this actually happens.
bluGill 39 minutes ago [-]
I want a connection to quality products that last until they wear out (or are obsolete). Customer service is part of quality.
enraged_camel 15 minutes ago [-]
>> I'm probably in the minority, but I do not want a "connection" with a business. I want transactional interactions that actually work.
I do want a connection. Because connection is what ensures that the transactional interactions continue to work outside of the "happy path". Connection is what ensures that you can return those expensive headphones you bought because extended use makes your neck hurt, even though the return window has passed.
mdorazio 1 hours ago [-]
An AI written post talking about the importance of human connection in the age of AI is hilarious.
ashishact 57 minutes ago [-]
I had read 80% of the post and loved it. Then I came to see few comments - Saw yours and now having difficulty reading further. That means:
1. AI has gotten better - or eventually most people would like reading AI generated content
2. Author is just using AI to post-process - content is original
Anyway I did love the content.
ashishact 54 minutes ago [-]
I normally have conversation with opus - And I enjoy it.
Maybe I am getting fine-tuned.
ygouzerh 53 minutes ago [-]
I feel like the author wrote like the full plan/ substance himself, and gave to an AI the formatting. It's quite fine for me so actually, as long as the substance make sense/is logical.
Gormo 42 minutes ago [-]
What about the formatting seems indicative of AI generation? It just looks like normal long-form writing to me.
Oops… gotta say that I agree with the general message of the article, though.
holistio 44 minutes ago [-]
> Here’s where I get frustrated, and this is the part of the article I’ve rewritten three times.
This was the chaotic evil part.
gblargg 1 hours ago [-]
Since I couldn't be bothered, I had AI read it and tell me the outcome: they did in fact go to online-only bookings, freeing the staff from the phones so they could help customers more.
LanceJones 1 hours ago [-]
I always wonder how people can tell. For this particular article, was it the thirty-four occurrences of em dashes with spaces on either side? Something else obvious?
smallerize 57 minutes ago [-]
The tiny sentence fragments are too much for me. They trip up the flow of the text.
Also the "not this, but that" structure is overused here.
40 minutes ago [-]
_gmax0 50 minutes ago [-]
When did "X is built one marble at a time" become popular?
Maybe search analytics can tell us.
This one almost feels like the AI got stuck in a perseverating loop of "He <blank> the <blank>." <repeat>
This is followed up by a sprinkling of every possible punctuative shakeup: bold, em-dash, semicolon, colon, quote, etc.
ramraj07 1 hours ago [-]
This particular article has the tell tale opus 4.8 smell of these short sentences. I think its mainly opus 4.8
bitwize 59 minutes ago [-]
Articles of this type suggest a fun game: "LLM or Marketroid?" Because either one could have written it, and both are capable of about equivalent levels of original thought. (whoops did i just say that out loud)
warpech 1 hours ago [-]
(As a non-native speaker) I didn’t notice that, I love this post and even shared it with my team
netsharc 1 hours ago [-]
Not sure if AI slop, or LI (LinkedIn) slop...
wrs 34 minutes ago [-]
This is great advice, as long as you remember you need both hospitality and service. At some point a warm relationship doesn’t compensate enough for a bad product.
I love that the staff at my little neighborhood bank remembers me, and was so warm and helpful when I had to open an estate account when my mom died, and sometimes I bring my favorite teller a latte on my way back from the coffee shop.
But I still switched my business account to Chase, because my little neighborhood bank’s website is stuck in about 2005, and I just couldn’t put up with it any longer!
majormajor 6 minutes ago [-]
> He called the restaurant. He was put on hold for thirty minutes. When someone finally answered, they were apologetic but firm — the restaurant was fully booked. No warmth. No conversation. Just a long wait and a closed door.
> In trying to humanise the process, he’d made it worse.
> Here’s where most stories would end with “so they moved everything online and fired the reservation staff.” That’s not what happened. They did move to online booking, but they kept the entire reservation team and repurposed them. These people now spent their days learning about the customers coming in that night. Who was celebrating a birthday? Who was on a first date? What had a regular not finished on their plate six months ago?
I have questions...
a) how does moving to online reservations help with "it's fully booked" if it's booked even before then?
b) what was "the entire reservation team" even doing that a phone call takes 30min to service and then just results in "nope we're full"?
In a lot of businesses, online reservations or tickets are scalper-prone, so I can absolutely see a desire to avoid that, and would be fully supportive of moving those things to phone or in-person. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, the story is just "He wanted the ritual of a human voice, the small exchange about an anniversary or a first date, the warmth of being recognised."
Which is plausible enough, but the details don't seem to add up. Is it even a true story? (Or is it the sort of plausible-but-internally-inconsistent thing you might get if you told an LLM to generate such a story about a restaurant?)
ygouzerh 55 minutes ago [-]
One thing I have a question: what about business that doesn't have hospitaly/B2C? Many exemples relies on the F&B business, which is quite special in the fact that one of the core value proposition is directly hospitality, so we could argue that "adding more hospitality" is actually their core business already.
But what about a company which is more in B2B, and where procurement will be more rationalized (e.g RFP, which is often regulated)?
One thing as well: this is moat from an organization point of view, but unfortunately not for the individual: soft skills are often easier to get than hard skills, and there is so already a competition on the job market for the client-facing roles, even before AI arrival: like Sales / Business Developers / Account Managers (or more internal roles to try to build something that the client would need, like Product Managers)
Animats 46 minutes ago [-]
Why can't AI replicate that?
Because it's not reliable enough to let it do anything which might cost the service provider. This is the cost of hallucinations. You can't let the customer service AI issue refunds, or upgrade someone to a better room. Not yet, anyway. Agentic AI systems with any real power generate minor disasters on a regular basis.
2 hours ago [-]
Simulacra 2 hours ago [-]
I agree. AI and some of these type of digital platforms are making interactions more efficient, maybe ..less costly but efficiency isn’t the same thing as a real connection. Instead of investing in AI/digitization maybe it's better to invest in employee training and growth.
That is something that AI is not giving us today. By design. Companies are not switching to AI customer service because it's better or cheaper for the same service. They are choosing to replace customer service with AI chat bots that simulate the customer service experience without actually providing the service part.
Every time a business tries to make a "connection" its really just an avenue to exploit or manipulate me. I've never had them making a connection for my benefit (i.e. take a hit to their bottom line).
I'm not asking for altruism but I am asking for them to drop the pretense and quit bullshitting me.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unaccountability_Machine
There is no marketing like Uber did sometimes of like: "personal service, free water bottle", and it's still killing it.
Of course, I personally always enjoy a chat with the driver, but many people I know prefer actually not talking.
One of the great lies of the modern world is that this actually happens.
I do want a connection. Because connection is what ensures that the transactional interactions continue to work outside of the "happy path". Connection is what ensures that you can return those expensive headphones you bought because extended use makes your neck hurt, even though the return window has passed.
1. AI has gotten better - or eventually most people would like reading AI generated content 2. Author is just using AI to post-process - content is original
Anyway I did love the content.
This was the chaotic evil part.
Also the "not this, but that" structure is overused here.
This is followed up by a sprinkling of every possible punctuative shakeup: bold, em-dash, semicolon, colon, quote, etc.
I love that the staff at my little neighborhood bank remembers me, and was so warm and helpful when I had to open an estate account when my mom died, and sometimes I bring my favorite teller a latte on my way back from the coffee shop.
But I still switched my business account to Chase, because my little neighborhood bank’s website is stuck in about 2005, and I just couldn’t put up with it any longer!
> In trying to humanise the process, he’d made it worse.
> Here’s where most stories would end with “so they moved everything online and fired the reservation staff.” That’s not what happened. They did move to online booking, but they kept the entire reservation team and repurposed them. These people now spent their days learning about the customers coming in that night. Who was celebrating a birthday? Who was on a first date? What had a regular not finished on their plate six months ago?
I have questions...
a) how does moving to online reservations help with "it's fully booked" if it's booked even before then?
b) what was "the entire reservation team" even doing that a phone call takes 30min to service and then just results in "nope we're full"?
In a lot of businesses, online reservations or tickets are scalper-prone, so I can absolutely see a desire to avoid that, and would be fully supportive of moving those things to phone or in-person. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, the story is just "He wanted the ritual of a human voice, the small exchange about an anniversary or a first date, the warmth of being recognised."
Which is plausible enough, but the details don't seem to add up. Is it even a true story? (Or is it the sort of plausible-but-internally-inconsistent thing you might get if you told an LLM to generate such a story about a restaurant?)
But what about a company which is more in B2B, and where procurement will be more rationalized (e.g RFP, which is often regulated)?
One thing as well: this is moat from an organization point of view, but unfortunately not for the individual: soft skills are often easier to get than hard skills, and there is so already a competition on the job market for the client-facing roles, even before AI arrival: like Sales / Business Developers / Account Managers (or more internal roles to try to build something that the client would need, like Product Managers)
Because it's not reliable enough to let it do anything which might cost the service provider. This is the cost of hallucinations. You can't let the customer service AI issue refunds, or upgrade someone to a better room. Not yet, anyway. Agentic AI systems with any real power generate minor disasters on a regular basis.