• Whitebrow@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 day ago

    The issue is offshoring of jobs.

    If you put a disclaimer that “you’ll be speaking with Rajiv in Ontario and AI will be used to lighten accent for clearer communication” I don’t have a problem with that.

    But flip that into a “you’ll be speaking with Bob in Nicaragua and AI will be used to lighten accent for clearer communication” and the sentiment suddenly shifts.

    Canadian companies should support local labour and create local jobs.

    Clear communication is kinda important, but competency is importanter and Canadian jobs are importantest.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      13 hours ago

      Canadian companies should support local labour

      I suspect Telus is barely a Canadian company.

    • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      14 hours ago

      It’s a nice sentiment but call centers are going to be entirely AI run before they return to higher income nations. It’s just too much of a competitive disadvantage unless you want to create a locked environment that requires corporations to run them locally even if at a higher cost.

      The more likely outcome is Rogers or Bell will run their customer service via AI entirely and some American company will be collecting rent on every token processed.

      • Whitebrow@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Oh don’t get me wrong, you’re probably right and I’m not arguing with that.

        But also the solution of forcing them to employ actual people locally is a good solution as far as I’m concerned.

        Overall I just don’t give a shit about their bottom line and would rather see them go bankrupt than continue to fuck us over while pulling record profits, be it by offshoring or AI.

        Same sentiment for grocery stores and the like too

        Pay the people who actually live here and they will put that money back into our economy, cuz the other ones certainly will not.

    • altphoto@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      Oprima el 2 para español…para español Mexicano, oprima el pinche tres hijo de su re-puta madre pues que la chingada carnal, estese agusado caray…for English press one.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 day ago

    In the past, call centre workers in India and other low-wage countries would first go though courses teaching them how to pass for someone from the country they were specialising in, where they’d choose a name and persona, learn the accent/dialect and some basics that locals would be expected to know: if they, say, were doing Australia, they may end up watching some episodes of Neighbours, choosing a name like Shane or Kylie, and picking a footy team they support; if England, it’d be Eastenders, Premier League and something like Gareth or Nicky. They’d presumably do this at their own expense, though perhaps the call centre company might forward them the money and get it back from their pay.

    Getting AI to make them sound like they’re from Bondi or Essex is probably more cost effective.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      I used to work at a call center for US-Americans in the US, where I was born. The number of times people responded with something like “lol no it’s not,” when I told them my name was infuriating. People used to ask me the weather or about my state history as a test, and I had a guy once call me padme the whole time, I think because he confused India and Naboo.

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      15 hours ago

      If they were working Australia they wouldn’t do shit, mate. All our call centres are full of pakistanis

  • hobovision@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    19 hours ago

    I thought we were supposed to just be able to talk to the AI directly… Are things not going so well with turning word guessers into general intelligence brains?