Have
you noticed the growing trend to eliminate human interaction in
our daily lives? For example, take airline ticketing. Used to be
when you wanted to book a trip to someplace, you’d call a travel
agent and tell them what you wanted and they would find it for
you. Most likely you’d get into some discussion about the
destination and often learn some important facts that might make
your trip more enjoyable. Then several years ago, the airlines
started booking trips themselves and you dealt with one of the
airline personnel. Not quite as good as a travel agent, but
still it was a live, human being.
Today, what do you get? A computer generated voice that leads
you on a merry chase through a maze of choices to facilitate
your trip without ever speaking to anyone other than a computer
chip. Is this progress or what? Does this virtual person care
what seat you’d like to sit in and why you want it? No. Does
this cyber being know or care to know why you are going on this
trip in the first place? Not in the least.
No, my friend, I’m afraid the days of personal human
intervention in our daily lives is slowly being eaten away bit
by bit. No pun intended. Its kind of sad when you think about
it, isn’t it? There have been times in the not too distant past
where I have been carrying on with this voice about something or
another only to discover that this isn’t a human I’m talking to
but a computer. My first clue is when I ask them something
personal and they don’t respond. How can they? They don’t have
anything personal to respond with. You are wasting your time
talking about the weather or their kids, since they don’t have
kids and probably don’t know or care about the weather.
If this is the condition we are in at this time, what do you
think will happen to us in say, twenty or twenty five years? If
we can get tickets on line without having to talk to any live
human being, then isn’t it likely that we might just regress to
the point where we don’t talk to anyone alive for any reason?
Isn’t this a scary thought? Look at some emergency calls in some
large cities where you get placed on hold by a computer when you
are trying to report a fire or a burglary. If this is the case,
can a computerized suicide hot line be far behind? This isn’t
funny, is it? Here you are in desperate need to speak to some
real live compassionate person and an IBM voice asks you what
the problem is and wants you to make your selection from several
menus of options. Not good.
No, I say we stop this foolishness and keep humans in the loop.
I thing we should revolt and rebel by pressing “0” for operator
every time we call, ignoring option number five. We should keep
pressing buttons until we speak to someone who actually cashes a
payroll check. We hang up and call back until a live person
answers. We must keep humanity alive. We must resist the
temptation to talk only to simulated beings. We have to draw the
line in the sand somewhere and maintain a sense of humanity if
we want to survive. We cannot cover up our heads and go blindly
into the night without someone other than the voice mail robot
hearing our cries for help.
