Computers Don't Argue by Gordon R. Dickson
A man has a complaint with his book club, but a series of errors escalate things alarmingly.
The Wikipedia article has the whole plot:
I miss used bookstores, most of the big ones in my city have closed down
I also regret the loss of so many used bookstores ... one of my favorite haunts. We can only try to visit the survivors much more often.
Similarly, Google could have a mostly automated system detecting violations and such, and also a good human support system with power to override the decisions of the former; the two are not really incompatible.
They said the same thing about banking when we got ATM's. But banking has only gotten worse, more impersonal, and more frustrating and alienating for the average person.
I'm not nearly old enough to remember prior to ATMs. But I love ATMs. I only have to go inside the bank to do things once every few years. Everything else is on the phone or ATM. And the people I deal with on the phone are almost always very helpful and knowledgeable.
I know people have a lot of trouble with some of the big banks like Bank of America and Chase. But those aren't issues with the banking industry but those specific companies. There's plenty of smaller banks and credit unions who don't exploit their customers at every opportunity.
I am. When ATM's started to become a thing, we were told that with ATM's automating the basics, the bankers and tellers would have more time for more personalized service, Banks would lower fees through cost savings, and we'd all have higher interest rates on our savings because the banks would save so much money.
None of those things happened. Things just got worse.
A couple of years ago I tried to get a loan. A credit union I tried to approach wouldn't let ask questions of someone on the phone, or in a branch, until I'd cleared the computer's online pre-screening.
At another bank (Chase), a banker sat down with me, but was not able to discuss my finances in any way. All he could do was punch my information into his computer, and give me the same information I would have gotten by doing the same process online.
Citibank, at least, let me talk to someone in person who seemed interested in my business. But then I went on vacation, and by the time I returned two weeks later, the offer was no longer valid and I was referred to the web site.
Again, things have gotten worse not better. Just because you're too young to know that things were once better doesn't mean they're not worse.
Last century, when I was a teenager, somebody set up a bank in the UK with an understanding of where all this is going. I have been with that bank ever since for my day-to-day banking needs.
The First Direct bank. They don't have any branches, they pay the same fees as other banks for there to be ATMs that work with their cards, and they own a web site and so on.
Instead of spending money on big solid-looking buildings people rarely visit, they run a massive 24/7 call centre, and all the call centre employees are trained to provide the entire service, since that's all they do. Absolutely every eventuality I've encountered was handled by telephoning them and then talking to a human. I often don't call them for six months at a time, but I've also had period when I called five times a day.
Two examples:
One day, still last century, I lost my wallet. Oh dear. I wanted to go out with friends, but I had no money, no cards. So I telephoned my bank. "Where are you?" they asked, because this was last century, so I was just a random voice with no indication of location. They looked up where I was, located some other bank building nearby and sent me there, then negotiated with that bank to give me cash.
This century, but a few years back, I bought somewhere to live. This involved a very large transaction. I phoned the bank, walked through exactly what I was doing and why, confirmed the transfer details and then they explained that no single employee of the bank is authorised to wave through such a transaction and I should expect to receive a phone call from another employee, who would confirm all the details again and then they could both authorise it. So I spoke to two people, for maybe a total of twenty minutes. Which considering the eye-watering sum of money that was about to just magically vanish from my account seems OK.
I don't understand why people would put up with any other sort of bank. I particularly don't understand people who are too busy to "go to the bank" on week days and then moan about it. This is 2018, I already didn't have to "go to the bank" in 1998. Get a better bank.
My needs are more... complex.
Disclosure: I know several people working there but I have never used my contacts for preferential customer service, nor would I expect that the service could be better than the standard one.
Generally, I think that the incredible gains from automation are possible but require a lot of internal changes to make sense; changes that most companies do not have the leadership to conduct. This s why new actors often take advantage of those. I suspect that’s why Google replaced Encyclopedia Brittanica and countless more examples.
I'm glad somebody is eating UK banks' lunches though, since they're universally awful.
They've added (this week) the ability to pay in small amounts of cash through the Paypoint network (https://monzo.com/blog/2018/11/21/deposit-cash/) and I believe they'll eventually add support for paying in thorough Post Office branches too. It's still pretty limited, but it's a start!
How do you order foreign currency?
Honestly I had no idea people even used their bank to do this!
Honestly I had no idea people even used their bank to do this!
I do this all the time. Citibank has a service called World Wallet where you call a number, and they'll FedEx you whatever currency you want anywhere in the world in 24-48 hours.
I used to just use the American Express offices when I traveled, but as my travel got more interesting, AmEx outlets became less common. Also, AmEx started only stocking popular currencies, while the Citi service delivers pretty much any currency that's legal where you are.
Yes, I'm being facetious, sorry. But it's a good example of how automation enabled more than just cost-cutting.
I don’t have that use case but yes, they have announced a service to do that.
> How do you order foreign currency?
I would typically use my card at ATMs in a foreign country (which comes with a small fee above a certain amount). In practice, I almost always need cash abroad for reasons covered by work-related expenses, and I keep those transactions on my Revolut account.
This explains why slightly inept well meaning companies shy away from such escalation paths. I wonder about the stats on appeals in court. How many are successful. How many go to an appeal at all. How costly is a single appeal / how costly is the average successful appeal.
Maybe that's the way to go. I know many volunteers answer Google's forums.
That said, even the system you're describing and with a 100% escalation rate should be cheaper than a fully manual process. The problem is that those "well meaning" companies aren't; their goal is to minimize cost, stopping only if it drops their revenue. But no system will be good with such goals.
While that's true in the abstract, I don't think it's true in present society. Both private companies and government are under near-constant pressure to cut costs, and the people who are charged with implementing those cuts will be tempted to under-resource the human override team or cut it entirely. Quality of service isn't the priority.
"Think of all of the money people are saving by allowing businesses to refuse service to disabled people."
A system with massive net positive social utility does not alone justify injustice for a few.
Chances are it wants to automate 100% (or at least 99.99%) of it jobs and will strive to achieve that, while considering any human cost as "friction" or inefficiency that needs to be eliminated.
Justice systems are always about exceptions. Computers handle exceptions EXTREMELY poorly.
A justice system should be required to have a human on record for every action taken against another human being. The computers can be used to verify this, but they should not be allowed to be primary.
*Obviously "you" means your organization, company, etc. and not necessarily some random office clerk.
It's one of the least automated systems (ie, employing technology to reduce inefficiencies) of all industry 'niches' in the western world.
Law enforcement might be using technology to dole out punishment/fines more efficiently, but the actual justice system that civilians have to deal with after getting fined or charged (ie, the world of lawyers, judges, and courts) is extremely backwards in their use of humans, paper, fax machines, etc. Not using even basic technology. The justice system is famous for the extreme slowness for the amount of human-time required in processing of even the most basic small details.
By eliminating the amount of human-time (by a hired lawyer or oneself) that each person has to engage the systems (for example by missing work or paying with money instead of time) would do a lot of help the poor better deal with the justice system - and get better and fairer treatment by the system.
The justice system is a big boulder at the top of a mountain. Once an arrest or accusation sets in it motion, unless you are powerful and or wealthy, it will do what boulders do, it can do no different. It is not cognizant, it just is.
It takes immense resources to stop or avoid this boulder. Resources far exceeding even the well-to-do often times.
The system is there to win cases and incarcerate and my god does it do just that.
Innocent or not, the system moves humans.
Do not pray the jury hears your side, pray you never get so much as accused. Look up the conviction rates for district attorneys across the country. You tell me, does that look justice?
We would hope so. It could also mean far worse things are happening. We’ve all seen documentaries and news shows of people wrongly convicted. Why do we think the only incidences are the ones reported.
I’ve watched detectives lie on the stand when a guilty verdict was already in hand. Why do that? How do they treat the innocent if that’s how they act when the facts of the case are enough to convict?
"caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare"
I've been meaning to read kafka one day. Is there a title in specific you would recommend to start with?
Imagine if the justice system was like Apple's App Store acceptance/rejection system.
Sorry for putting that in your head, y'all.