The AI will probably be far less angry than this.
The majority of us have had a job in retail at some point, so we know that despite our respective employers instilling in us the belief that the customer is somehow always right, most of the time they are completely and utterly wrong. However, in order to keep their jobs those with a career in customer service must humor those with even the most nonsensical of opinions, lest they want to swiftly find themselves on the unemployment line.
In order to help train customer service employees for when they’re forced to deal with a particularly enraged customer, the Touchpoint Group are developing “angry AI” that utilizes two years’ worth of customer calls from four of Australia’s largest bank in order to simulate real exchanges with pissed off customers.
A report from The Australian states that Touchpoint have invested $500,000 in developing the AI, which will be used in order to help customer service reps defuse anger and “help companies better understand the behaviours and processes that trigger customer outbursts.”
But it will probably be a lot more angry than this.
Touchpoint’s chief executive Frank van der Velde said: “The end goal is to build an engine that can recommend solutions to companies — and we’re talking about the people at the frontline here — how they can improve particular issues that customers are facing.
“This will be possible by enabling our AI engine to learn right across a whole range of interactions of what has and has not worked in past examples.”
This could perhaps be the first example of an AI being developed for the sole purpose of being angry, and while it’s unlikely that artificial intelligence created using the passive-aggressive, condescending tone typically employed by most frustrated customers could eventually grow to become the Skynet-esque force that sends humanity to the brink of extinction, it’s certainly emblematic of the different kinds of ways in which we will use AI in the future.
Inset Image: Getty Images
