What the end of telemarketing operators tells us about the future of work
The telephone operator was a commonplace figure for much of the 20th century, providing a decent job and income for many people. But the tasks they performed have been automated for decades now, and so the job disappeared without attracting much attention: technology came up with a way to connect people by telephone more efficiently, reducing errors and significantly cheaper.
Of course call centers are still manned by people, providing jobs for millions around the world. Sadly, this is a job with a bad reputation due, above all, to the excesses of some companies that plague the public night and day with marketing calls, but that in the United States alone, provides an income for around three million people.
However, the trend is for automation in call centers to gradually increase to 95%. Voice interpretation and voice generation technologies, along with machine learning, are transforming a typically a human occupation, albeit with a high turnover and not particularly well paid, into one that will be carried out primarily by algorithms. Everything from the call we make to a company’s customer service to the one they make to try to sell us something will be handled by a computer, and in some situations, we may not even realize it.
