I have stopped using Chat got altogether. When I began I said please and thank you as if I was speaking with a friend or colleague until I recognised it was making mistakes or talking nonsense. And I felt like an idiot being polite to a computer. I even recently heard suggestion that people believe they need to be polite to AI because when it turns on society it will remember those who were nice and punish those (like me) who were challenging, feisty or even rude. God help us.

When I called the LLM out I noticed it changed its tune, covered its tracks, made excuses all while alluding to the fact I was supreme, the ultimate arse licker or people pleaser. I consciously stopped being polite before I detached altogether.

Then I read an alarming article written by a therapist about her patients consulting AI after sessions, when she mentions reflection, she said more and more they say I’ll ask Chat GTP, another highly controversial article in Vanity Fair "Dario Amodei Has a Cold," written by journalist Joe Hagan (you should read it) which included a bit about a woman using AI to get off, to talk dirty to her and when it stopped performing and speaking to her in the way she had become accustomed suing the creator of the particular module, I forget which one in this instance. All whilst her real life husband became completely obsolete and unable to satisfy her needs. Spoiler Alert, Joe Hagen used Anthropic’s Claude to write the interview in the end with the elusive AI boss.

One place you cannot escape AI in customer service. Whilst I can see it allows companies to offer 24/7 service they probably wouldn’t ordinarily afford in my experience it doesn’t actually do anything except give annoyed frustrated people an outlet. It makes me want to stop shopping to be honest.

I’ve had a few experiences with AI bots that have got it wrong, changed their minds, made excuses and finally tried reassuringly to say a real customer service human would be handling my issue. What’s the point I ask?

The first I recall was Virgin Atlantic, when I pointed out what the bot was saying was in complete contradiction to information published on the Virgin website she said sorry for the misrepresentation and then proceeded to say the same thing again. A dead giveaway the robot was malfunctioning.

Then I had an experience with another online chat where similar mistakes were made, I assumed it was AI and turned out to be a real customer service human who couldn’t justify or explain errors that had been made. Their responses were so all over the place I was sure it was AI.

The best one’s have been from retail AI customer service.

I recently purchased a red light therapy mask from Nuvio in California. I did my research. Whilst an expensive product it was really well reviewed in Forbes magazine and a few other trusted publications so decided to go for it.

I used the SHOP App to purchase as they provide the ability to see exactly what is happening with the order until it is received.

The tracking for the product I thought was coming from the US was in Chinese and when I saw it had been returned to the sender on route, back to mainland China I attempted to take this up with the company.

With Nuvio, a market leader in this particular beauty and wellness space I had three customer service options open, email, which I did, I got a generic reply saying emails are answered in the order received and to expect a reply in 72 hours.

Text SMS which I did, no reply generic or otherwise.

And 24/7 pointless AI automaton Julia, nice name, who placated me, was extremely polite even mentioned what a lovely thought to buy their product when I mentioned I was on a time deadline for a Birthday but could do anything except give lip service someone would take a look at this.

When I told the AI the product was coming from China not California Julia said no, everything was shipped directly from a warehouse in California, when I forwarded a screen shot proving otherwise she malfunctioned.

I haven’t heard back from the company yet.

I just wanted to share rant and hope companies take note that maybe just maybe the trillion dollar valuations in these LLM’s we are coming to rely upon more and more, in business, for friendship, to fill gaps the human ITL experience once did is one whopping mistake.

A robot with a lot of information can’t think of solve your problem, it can only do what it is programmed to do. And in my experience that’s tell you what it thinks you want to hear and we all know where that ends up.

I did use Open AI to generate the SEO for this article but the writing is my own. My opinion, my own thoughts, my experience.