The wholesale adoption of articial intelligence (AI) has raised all sorts of red flags and complaints, and some of its applications do seem pretty morally grey (or at least tone deaf). This is one I hadn't anticipated, though.
Canadian telecom Telus has started using AI-driven accent-correcting technology in its call centres, as well as in its internal phone operations. The technology, provided by a third party company Tomato.ai, uses speech-to-speech models to transform live audio. It is designed to preserve the speaker's voice and "emotional tone", whole addressing mispronunciations and the sometimes hard-to-understand accents of many call centre agents working from overseas (or even from within Canada).
Of course, this has raised hackles. Opponents say that any kind of deception of this kind should be either stopped, or at least Canadians should be informed up-front that AI is being used, particularly as many call centre functions are being outsourced overseas, depriving Canadians of job opportunities. Canada has seen a substantial amount of customer service related job reductions in recent years, particularly within the telecom sector.
There again, it is argued, the technology improves operational efficiency, thus saving Canadians money in the end. It helps speed up calls, helps customers find good solutions, and protects service agents from harassment and discrimination. That may be the case, but it is a solution to a problem of the company's own creation (off-shoring call centres to save money).
Should Canadians have the right not to be deceived by AI technology, as telecom unions are arguing? Probably. Does it really matter? Well, yes, it kind of does, particularly from the point of view of AI-induced job losses. Why don't we just go the whole hog and have AI man the phones directly, rather than just deceiving customers like this? Well, because AI is just not that good yet. But it will be soon.
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