leaking pen wrote:
how about the service industry? not everyone uses the automated system . . .
There was a time when people disdained pumping their own gas, but nearly everyone does it now. Few people are willing to pay a dime extra per gallon for "full service" gasoline. Travel agents are a vanishing breed, because everyone books his own flight on the Internet.
Once we have birdbrain-class computers I think it will be very few service industry jobs that cannot be handled by robots. People will not want live humans doing jobs such waiting on tables or making beds in hotels. They will consider that intrusive and kind of ikky, the way Americans think of these European bathroom attendants who hang around selling toilet paper. (Or whatever it is they do.)
, and call centers are now larger employers in the us than plants.
Most call centers are a product of today's lousy computer technology. Computers are still in their infancy, and operating systems such as Windows are an atrocity. They cause countless problems which have to be resolved by talking to people at call centers. Or not resolved. All of the problems I have called in in the last few years have been caused by bad software, or hardware failures that should have been diagnosed by the software, with things such as the HTDV, satellite TV, lost UPS shipments, and even the refrigerator. All of these problems will be eliminated or handled automatically once computer technology matures. We do not even need robots; refrigerators will diagnose their own problems, get on the Internet, and tell General Electric they need a replacement part or a maintenance call.
Also, artificial intelligence is making slow progress and computers are beginning to "understand" language. In 20 years I expect the automated attendants will handle most routine problems. There already handle things such as reporting power failures for Georgia Power. (We have lots of power failures.)
- Jed
