Re: ongoing infrastructure changes with AI in the USA

On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 14:09:54 +1100, "Gary R. Schmidt"
<grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:

On 17/11/2024 04:02, Paul S Person wrote:
[SNIP]

Most of the companies I have had to try to deal with over the past few

years are heavily protected by automated telephone/online chat trees
which /never/ get you to an actual person. The closest one came was to
offer me the option of using my phone to chat with one. Sadly, my
phone doesn't do that; it's very primitive.
 
IOW, they only want to hear about the problems they can imagine you
might have and so have solutions for. Anything else is of no interest
to them.

>
Many - I can't say most - of the voice-(non-)response systems can be
forced to pass you to a human if you keep saying, "I want to speak to a
human", or, "I need to speak to a person", repeatedly.
>
That's my general goto when I get stuck in a vast maze of twisty
passages, all alike.

That's been my experience in the past.

But the last time I tried it, all I got was a number I was graciously
allowed to send text messages to. Of course, if you happen to have a
phone that can send text messages, that's just as good in that you may
find yourself working with a human being. Unless it just leads you to
the chat tree used online, of course.

OTOH, when my DSL died my former ISP had people available. I may have
managed to mess things up a bit, but they helped me un-mess them so
things worked out fine (kept my emails, dropped them as an ISP). But
they may be smaller than the company I am describing.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"