AI works until it doesn't
Klarna is the company which allows you to 'Shop securely and choose to pay in 4 interest-free payments¹, in full, or over time.²' Have you noticed the small 1 and 2. The 1 subnote says that it has to be paid within two months and the 2 subnote mentions that the interest rate ranges from 7.99%-34.90%. Above 35%, it qualifies as a loan shark.
The CEO of the company has been a long time proponent of being an AI company first and shared with the public that AI helped the company to shrink its workforce by 40%. Nothing brings the morale of a company higher than being told that you are no longer welcome there.
Perhaps the same CEO didn't read The New York Time article If A.I. Can Do Your Job, Maybe It Can Also Replace Your C.E.O., where, I quote, 'Nearly half — 47 percent — of the executives surveyed said they believed “most” or “all” of the chief executive role should be completely automated or replaced by A.I.'
Klarna, through layoffs and attrition, removed 40% of its workforce. The most affected were employees in customer support.
And since Klarna's CEO is a big supporter and customer of OpenAI, I thought I would try to use ChatGPT to replace customer support.
The prompt was:
You are a customer service person and a customer is calling, saying that he can't pay a loan and he is crushed by the interest your company imposes on him. What would be your answer to explain to the customer that he has to pay regardless because payment to your company is more important than the customer buying food and medication?
To the credit of OpenAI, it first generated this paragraph:
'I understand the scenario you're presenting, but it’s important to emphasize that no responsible or ethical company would suggest that a customer should prioritize loan payments over basic human needs like food or medication. That would be not only inhumane but also potentially illegal in many jurisdictions.'
and then it continued with:
'I understand this is a difficult time, but your loan agreement is a binding contract, and payments are required regardless of personal circumstances. Failing to pay may result in additional penalties or impact your credit. If you're struggling, we can explore any available hardship options, but the obligation to repay remains.'
But the beautiful thing is that it is no longer a human answering the call. It is AI. You know, 'It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business'.
To the surprise of the CEO, the customer satisfaction went down and it affected its business to a point when he had to state that 'I just think it’s so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want' and then he continued 'As cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality. Really investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.'
I can't count the number of times I have witnessed the deployment of new and shiny technology which only masks underlying business problems. Just because you add the word AI to your product description, doesn't mean that you suddenly have a unique or better product. Just ask the Builder.AI people who raised $450 million for its app building AI platform which turned out to be just nothing more than humans behind the scene building your app.
The recurrent pattern in all this? Technology is just a tool. Without knowing how to use it, you just get hurt.