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In case you’re not up to speed with “post-AI" lingo’, ‘bot’ is short for “robot”. And “robot” is the main tool used by the (AI) [“artificial intelligence”] system, which is invading our lives with frightening speed and driving many people crazy (especially those who are in the second half of their life-spans. Or live in developing countries and are not that computer-savvy).
Driving people crazy? Yes!
Just listen to what a friend who has just relocated to Ghana, after many years of cold-absorption in “Cornback” (Aburokyire, or UK for those who are only in the first part of their life span). He writes: “Opanin”, (this title immediately identifies me with his age group and explains why he chose me to tell his story to!) “I’ve been back for some years, but kept an account with a financial institution in the UK in case an emergency arose in my life that required access to foreign funds.
“Without asking me, a very nice lady at the institution decided that she would enroll me into an easily operated scheme whereby I would not need to go in person to the institution any longer if it became necessary for me to carry a simple transaction. Even a telephone call would not be necessary. An “app” on my mobile phone would handle everything for me.
“Now, I don’t do too many transactions, so I readily agreed. Life went on as before. But then I came to Ghana. And just after I had arrived, Covid-19 hit both Britain and Ghana quite hard. Going back to the UK in the middle of the pandemic became an unattractive prospect, given my age and the gloomy reports about how the disease was affecting the British people. Better stay and enjoy the sunshine at Ogyakurom, (I thought.)
And then one day, I discovered that during the course of moving homes, I’d lost the phone with the “app” on it!
When I tried to access my account with a different phone, I got short shrift. The “app” understandably wanted to “verify” my ID before allowing me into the account (thank God it was so protective!) But, then, it wouldn't accept anything I produced in answer to its demands! Even a photo ID wouldn't be accepted because such ID docs are limited to a few select countries that did NOT include Ghana!)
“Now, this was the frightening part: after the app had refused me access to my own account, it would tell me that it was passing me on to a member of the “Help team”. It would generously warn me that a lot of people were using its systems and so I might experience some minutes of silence on the line. Then it would put on some atrocious “music”.
“I would then hold on the line, hoping someone on the Help team would come soon to sort me out. But I would wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. One hour! Two hours!
"Then I would hang up and ring again. Same treatment. Sometimes, to get me to keep holding on, the “bot” would actually LIE and tell me that I would be connected to the “Help Desk” in “the next two minutes”. Big joke. Two hours again! Sometimes, when I rang, I heard a click, which meant I had been disconnected without the automatic message being played to annoy me! The "bot", I figured out, had been properly schooled in human psychology!
“I began to develop feelings of paranoia. Was the financial institution trying to steal my funds? Obviously, the system had been programmed to trap me into hanging on the line. But why? Was it to enable me to be charged, even as I felt so frustrated at not being connected? (There was an ominous warning in small characters saying that “charges” could be incurred on calls to certain numbers!)
"Yes, the institution was set up to make profits for its owners, but should such blatant oppression of customers be allowed? Who could contradict the firm's claim that the customer was NOT being connected to the Help staff because too many people were genuinely using the service at the same time? Could one ask an ALGORITHM why the institution had been closing down its call centres, if it knew that the traffic was too thick? Wasn't it the institution itself that projected the number of call centres it thought it would need before adopting the system?
“I tried my luck every now and then,” (the diasporan continued). “I would do everything I was asked to do. But still no luck. Three months it went on! My standing with, family members who were helping me out with money was getting to be problematic. What I resented most was that the “bot” was almost always rejecting my responses to its requests without telling me why. And yet, it was also not allowing me to “appeal” to the real humans, i8tn had said it was passing me on to!! Why? Because an ALGORITHM is created to act as if it was INFALLIBLE? If that is not tyranny, what is? If businesses that were supposed to court and value customer loyalty were doing this, then what would happen if public services and oppressive surveillance systems got hold of such systems? Would 'AI' become a means of treating whole populations like sheep (as in George Orwell'snovel,1984)?
"Already, Britain is in the throes of a major scandal, unprecedented in nature that was created for the British Post Office after it had used a software system that the Post Office had commissioned from a private company. Nearly 1000 repeat 1000 sub-postmasters who had been employed after normal routine enquiries on financial probity had been made on them, were suddenly “exposed” by the new software to be indulging in false accounting and dishonest embezzlement of all sorts. Many were jailed. Others lost their homes. Some committed suicide, unable to stand the shame and penury that RUTHLESS Post Office prosecutors inflicted on them. All because the gullible and possibly corrupt bosses of the British Post Office believed that Artificial Intelligence, as concocted by their "business friends" in the software manufacturing world, could not go wrong! (See Google "The British Post Office Scandal"),
Google should lead you to an article by Marina Hyde of The Guardian newspaper that may make you cry.
My friend concluded with the news that at long last (after three months or so), he had been allowed to speak to a human from the Help team, who had taken him through the normal "security" questions, which he had, of course, answered satisfactorily. And he had then been allowed access back into his account.
He is relieved, but swears that if he ever becomes rich during the 'AI' era, he will keep his money under a mattress!
Who can blame him?
