World's Largest Call Center Company Has Invested $13M in AI Technology to Modify Indian Agent's Accents in Real Time
Ground News - Teleperformance, the world's largest call center company, has invested $13 million in Sanas AI technology to modify Indian agents' accents in real-time. The company serves major clients including Apple, Samsung, and TikTok.
If you base things purely off what you see on social media, it seems like 90% of the research going into artificial intelligence is being misdirected. It's either people perfecting how to create completely fake yet ultra-realistic images and videos that are indistinguishable from real life, or it's the brightest AI minds in the world just seeing how far for they can take things out of their own ego and morbid curiosity that will ultimately result in robots taking over the world and blowing up the sun. But there are good things about AI too. With this story, we can put at least one (1) tally mark in the "AI is good" column. Well... maybe...
I don't care how spectacularly progressive and tolerant you are as a human being, language barriers are frustrating as hell. And they're exacerbated tenfold when you're dealing with a language barrier over the phone. Calling customer service in it's own right is a nightmare. Nobody looks forward to doing it. Even when you're dealing with someone who speaks your native tongue perfectly, it can still be difficult to communicate. Sometimes the volume on the receiver is quiet, or hard to hear. There could be feedback, or maybe the call keeps cutting out a split second at a time so you keep missing little bits of the conversation. Honestly, in moments I've struggled with outsourced customer service, it's almost more of a connection problem than it is a language problem. And sometimes it's just hard to articulate what exactly your problem is over the phone when don't have the product (or whatever it is you're calling about) to physically point to. Have you ever tried to explain the type of noise of printer is making over the phone? It's a ridiculous conversation. So when there's a language barrier on top of all that, it's a brutal situation for everyone involved.
People have been complaining about this forever, and India always takes the brunt it. Despite the fact that it couldn't be further from their fault. For very obvious (and infuriating) reasons, thriving American companies who make money hand over fist, companies with primarily English speaking customer bases, insist on outsourcing their call centers. Oftentimes to India. Instead of lowering their CEO's salary to a mere $20,000,000 per year and opening the most efficient in-country customer service department America has ever seen, they direct their loyal customers to speak with people across multiple oceans. People who have possibly never an in-person conversation with a natural born English speaker in their entire lives. For the people working in these departments, I'm happy that they've found a job for themselves. You can't blame somebody for accepting a job offer they've been told they're qualified for. And to be fair, when you get connected with call centers in India, a high majority of the time it works out fine. It's maybe a little difficult at first, but usually your ear adjusts and you figure it out. To be even more fair, a lot of the time an Indian customer service rep who's being paid an awe-inspiringly low amount of money will go to the ends of the god damn earth to solve an extremely minor issue, and put up with shit in a way not many minimum wage American employees ever would. But in other cases, it's maddeningly unfair for companies to task them with solving the problems of people on the opposite end of the world using their 4th best language. For those people, this technology could be super beneficial.
On the surface, if you don't think about the big picture whatsoever, that all seems pretty great. Now instead of being frustrated with a language barrier, I'll just get angry about my customer service agent's general incompetence as a human. Problem solved. But you can't really talk about this subject without wondering what the implications are. Or what the next step is. I'm sure there's already an AI program somewhere out there that would allow me to communicate seamlessly with even the most remote African tribes who speak in a series of clicks and whistles. If it's already cheap to outsource a customer service department to India when their hiring pool is limited to a population of 12% English speakers, think how cheap it will be when they can choose from everyone. And at what point is the human being on the other end of the call no longer necessary? "Slippery slope" is a such a cliche term, but when talking about AI, it's too fitting not to use.
So in conclusion... no frustrating language barriers on customer service calls, the potential to communicate with people around the world no matter what language they speak, the fact that maybe in the near future I'll be able to wear an ear piece and understand what my Uber driver is talking on his bluetooth about. Those are all good things. The fact that every day we're getting on step closer to half of the world's jobs being better done by artificial intelligence. Kinda scary. In second thought, maybe we should just stick to perfecting AI videos that trick old people. And teaching robots how to kill us all before it's too late. With any luck, they'll at least make it quick and painless.