this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Air Canada's chatbot gave a B.C. man the wrong information. Now, the airline has to pay for the mistake (bc.ctvnews.ca)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Jake Moffatt was booking a flight to Toronto and asked the bot about the airline's bereavement rates – reduced fares provided in the event someone needs to travel due to the death of an immediate family member.

Moffatt said he was told that these fares could be claimed retroactively by completing a refund application within 90 days of the date the ticket was issued, and submitted a screenshot of his conversation with the bot as evidence supporting this claim.

The airline refused the refund because it said its policy was that bereavement fare could not, in fact, be claimed retroactively.

Air Canada argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by the bot.

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[–] jasep 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Chatbot = basically free

Yearly employee = probably about $100k incl benefits

Should they hire a person? Absolutely. Will they if they can get away with it? Aww hell naw.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

You are pretty optimistic they would pay $100k for this job. It is probs far less, which makes this even worse, they are not saving that much money really.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

It costs your employer about 30% more to employ you than what you earn (approximately) - so hiring someone for 75k will usually cost a company somewhere around 100k.

[–] jasep 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I didn't say they would pay $100k. I said it would cost probably $100k including benefits - a full time employee cost isn't just their salary or hourly wage. There's lots of overhead cost to employ a person at a large company. Also keep in mind this is for a Canadian, so don't be thinking in USD. In CAD in the Toronto area (for example), it isn't unreasonable to think even a first line phone based customer service agent salary would be between $65-70k, then the employee expenses on top of that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

LOL customer service agents do NOT get paid $65-70k

[–] jasep 0 points 9 months ago

Well, you're just wrong about that. I worked for a company that employed front of the line customer service in Toronto that paid $80k...in 2017! I'm not saying Air Canada does (I have no idea what AC wages are), but if their agents are part of a union, it's definitely possible.

But my point stands - if anyone thinks these companies are going to 'do the right thing' and hire real people when these AI chatbots exist and are so cheap, it's just not going to happen.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It’s probably half that, but a chatbot can serve thousands of users whereas an employee can manage a few at a time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Confirmed. As someone who has led customer operations at large companies, the scale of chatbots to address a userbase is absurd. Companies are more than willing to take the hit to their reputation and customer goodwill in exchange for not needing to hire as much staff, train them, manage their schedules or deal with benefits and performance reviews. Cutting all that cost is an instaboner to execs and a nightmare to support managers who actually care about quality.

The amount of $700 judgements that Air Canada would need to be hit with to make replacing humans with chatbots a losing proposition is too high. It'll never happen.

Sadly, in my decade of experience, I've yet to see any bots able to reliably handle much beyond 'where's my order?'.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I want to see who will buy the garbage they are selling when no one has money.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Doesn't matter to their shareholders. They'll have already made their money.