<story><title>Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI</title><url>https://thedeepdive.ca/shopify-employee-breaks-nda-to-reveal-firm-quietly-replacing-laid-off-workers-with-ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ghaff</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s been a pretty steady trend towards automation, chatbots, self-service, etc. replacing getting an empowered human on the line. Given labor costs and labor shortages, expect even more.&lt;p&gt;Had an airline thing that the website (and app) wouldn&amp;#x27;t let me complete online. Spent ages on hold but then was able to get hold of their premium account number and was fixed right away. (Of course, would actually have preferred if I could have just completed the change online.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>&amp;gt; Of course, would actually have preferred if I could have just completed the change online.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s so interesting to me how generational this is, and how it changed so quickly.&lt;p&gt;I used to work in something tangentially related to real estate. The sellers&amp;#x2F;landlords tended to all be older (50+, this was about 10 years ago), while the renters&amp;#x2F;some buyers tended to be millennials and younger. The older folks went apoplectic when we tried to move more communication onto our online platform: &amp;quot;I always talk to every potential renter on the phone. I feel I can discern a lot about someone from a phone call.&amp;quot; Meanwhile, younger folks generally &lt;i&gt;despised&lt;/i&gt; having to talk to someone on the phone - if they couldn&amp;#x27;t complete the whole transaction online they were much more likely to bail.&lt;p&gt;Not making a judgment about either approach, really just thought it was interesting how stark the divide was and how it changed so quickly.</text></comment>
<story><title>Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI</title><url>https://thedeepdive.ca/shopify-employee-breaks-nda-to-reveal-firm-quietly-replacing-laid-off-workers-with-ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ghaff</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s been a pretty steady trend towards automation, chatbots, self-service, etc. replacing getting an empowered human on the line. Given labor costs and labor shortages, expect even more.&lt;p&gt;Had an airline thing that the website (and app) wouldn&amp;#x27;t let me complete online. Spent ages on hold but then was able to get hold of their premium account number and was fixed right away. (Of course, would actually have preferred if I could have just completed the change online.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>There is a billboard on the 101 southbound from SF I drove past last night that said “An AI bot trained on the entirety of human knowledge wants a job on your support team.”&lt;p&gt;Amusingly, this is the sort of filter you want to push management through to determine levels of both competency and empathy (“what is the true practicality of this?” and “should we do this?”).&lt;p&gt;Edit: found someone’s photo of it: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;old.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;ChatGPT&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;150vold&amp;#x2F;does_anyone_know_about_this_sign_in_san_francisco&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;old.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;ChatGPT&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;150vold&amp;#x2F;does_anyon...&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.redd.it&amp;#x2F;kgu48tgk09cb1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.redd.it&amp;#x2F;kgu48tgk09cb1.jpg&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>