<story><title>California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/will-californias-new-bot-law-strengthen-democracy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dessant</author><text>I felt stupid, but I have fallen victim to this on dpd.com while tracking a package. A helpful chat popup has appeared where I could request assistance from a support agent, but it was not disclosed that the agent is a bot.&lt;p&gt;Needless to say I have spent a couple of minutes repeatedly asking a question, and even rephrasing it while being frustrated that this person does not seem to grasp my issue.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jonnydubowsky</author><text>My recent experience with a credit card customer support agent might as well have been me conversing with a bot. It was actually more frustrating for both me and the agent, that they were so strictly bound to a script, with no room for their creative human brain to actually adapt their response to the unique context of my issue.
When customer service is nothing more then an agent choosing from various scripted responses, what is the point?
Escalating my issue up through 2 senior agents, i finally reached a human who was allowed by their employer to actively apply context to their support tasks.
The use of programmed constraints on a system and how that system is sold to customers, this is a wicked problem of our times.</text></comment>
<story><title>California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/will-californias-new-bot-law-strengthen-democracy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dessant</author><text>I felt stupid, but I have fallen victim to this on dpd.com while tracking a package. A helpful chat popup has appeared where I could request assistance from a support agent, but it was not disclosed that the agent is a bot.&lt;p&gt;Needless to say I have spent a couple of minutes repeatedly asking a question, and even rephrasing it while being frustrated that this person does not seem to grasp my issue.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>burfog</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been assuming that it&amp;#x27;s a pre-determined initial message, but that a real human in a low-cost country would immediately be involved if I bothered to respond.&lt;p&gt;What portion of the chat pop up windows do you think are purely bot? Might any of them be purely human?</text></comment>