Why bots will kill neither websites nor apps
Try calling a business and a robot answers, nothing pisses off a caller more, than calling a business, robot answers then put on hold.
Surrey University had this system several years ago. You had to say who you wanted. Maybe fine if an English name eg John Smith. Try asking for a non-English name eg Adel Sharif, a professor at the university. The robot fails.
Hotel Be Live Tenerife, robot answers, then put on hold for several minutes whilst fed Be Live propaganda.
Try calling EHIC for problems with card or a new card. Have to say name, address. Repeated attempts clearly spoken, simple English names, it gets it wrong every time. Eventually option for a human. It passes to a dead line.
What this tells the caller loud and clear, is the business or institute or government agency, holds the caller in contempt. Your time is worthless.
Yes, there are alternatives to use to a landline or mobile number, but that does not mean big corporations are going to use them.
People use messaging apps to communicate in a social space.
In Cyprus and Tenerife, I noticed small businesses giving WhatsApp as a contact, as well as e-mail address. Not a single one using facebook messenger.
Surprisingly, none used skype.
Technology is a disruptor.
We saw this with the printing press.
We see it with social media.
The typewriter displaced the clerk, brought in the typist and the typing pool.
Cinema displaced the vaudeville.
Radio displaced the concert hall.
Internet displaced small ads in the local paper, eg eBay.
Tour companies displaced by direct bookings.
Record labels displaced by digital music.
When was the last time anyone saw an independent record shop? The few that survive, eg Resident in Brighton, are excellent, and that is why they survive, they do not promote commercial rubbish.
Who these days needs a record label, when to record and release can all be done on a small budget, made available via bandcamp?
The main difference, is that which replaces what went before, generates a fraction of the monetary value of what went before.
A classic example of information costs tending to zero.
Business has little understanding of how to use social media, let alone bots.
Social media is private, personal space. People resent intrusion into their personal space by corporations.
We should be more concerned with robots displacing jobs, not bots displacing websites and apps.
An Oxford University study found almost half of all jobs will be automated.
The only reason we are not seeing this now is because of the creation of what David Graeber calls bullshit jobs. Half a dozen immigrants with dirty rags and a bucket of water replace an automatic car wash.
High wages drives the next technological innovation, the next 50 year cycle of the adaptive Capitalist system.
It has not happened. It has not happened because neo-liberalism has driven down wages. It has not happened because we have serfs working for apps at less than minimum wage.
Capitalism ended in 2008. We are now in post-capitalist transition.
What we should be asking, is what do we do with these displaced workers?
At the very least we need a Basic Income.
Next question: How do we pay for a Basic Income?
