On Thursday, 12 November 2026 16:31:23 Greenwich Mean Time G. Branden Robinson wrote: > At 2026-11-12T16:24:26+0000, Deri wrote: > > On Thursday, 12 November 2026 14:41:30 Greenwich Mean Time G. Branden > > > > Robinson wrote: > > > Thus, there at least are two things I'd have no problem with, which, > > > given the tenor of this thread, might surprise people. > > > > > > 1. Deri putting a comment in gropdf.pl along these lines. > > > > > > # I once did this differently but the groff maintainer is a prat. > > > > I rushed to grep any of those words in gropdf.pl, alas absent, but > > watch out for my next push. ;-) > > I'll steel myself. ;-) > > > On peoples' accents: I spoke to 'gemini' once - asking it a question - > > its response was "Do one". (I'd love to know what it thought I said to > > it - it certainly wasn't a question with multiple choice answers). > > Usually I have about 75% success rate in people I don't know > > understanding my speech (face- to-face - a bit lower on the phone > > because they are trying to work out if I'm inebriated or not). For > > LLMs its 0%, so much for "super intelligence"! > > That's a pretty dark insight into what big tech companies think the > social utility of LLMs _isn't_. :-/
The problem is getting worse as more workflows switch to bots. I met a young confident and enthusiastic bot called Andi a few weeks ago. I rang our doctors surgery to arrange our free winter flu vaccination and on pressing "1 for flu vaccinations" I was greeted by a very pleasant Andi. The call lasted 10 minutes (I wonder how many tokens that burned). The problem was that Andi had difficulty understanding me but was confident enough to assume it did, even my "No" answers to "Is that Correct?" were taken as affirmatives. At the end of the conversation, he booked an appointment for the wrong name, 30 odd years younger than me (so would not qualify for the vaccination), and lived about 50 miles away (why would they choose my local surgery). I wrote to the practice manager inviting her to review the performance of Andi on that particular call knowing they recorded all calls (and I might have intimated I recorded it as well - I hadn't but I will next time). I got a nice email back which included:- "Following the receipt of your email I have met with the IT team to review the phone calls and establish what seems to have happened here as our Andi AI tool is set up for patients to arrange on the day appointment. Upon investigating why you were transferred through to the Andi AI tool when selecting to arrange your flu vaccination we discovered that the options on the telephone system were unfortunately in the wrong order. We have now corrected this so if you set the option to arrange your flu vaccination it will go through to the reception team and not Andi AI. There is now a separate option for patients who are happy to arrange appointments via the AI tool. I can completely understand your frustrations as the AI tool was struggling as it is not set up for flu vaccination appointments but for more acute a routine appointments with our GP's and Nurses. I am very sorry for the negative experience you have had when using this tool. I can see that you still don't have your vaccination booked so I have asked a member of the reception team to contact you today and arrange this for you and your wife. Thank you for bringing this to my attention." Unfortunately I think this means that should I have need of an urgent, on the day appointment, it is likely I will be meeting Andi again!! But, at least for next years flu jab, there's a good chance I can talk to a human. All part of the rich tapestry of life. Cheers Deri > Regards, > Branden
