“Angry” AI To Train Customer Service Reps

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Most of us know the frustration of dealing with a dumb voicemail AI, the kind that accepts your call and in the nicest, most annoying voice asks you to press a million buttons to (maybe) reach a person who’ll be able to assist you. We sometimes feel angry at the representative we reach, and most of all at the faceless conglomerate that forces us to wade through such murky, infuriating waters.

Well, soon enough, some of these customer service reps will be getting a dose of the same enraging medicine.

Scientist at New Zealand’s The Touchpoint Group are working on an AI that should help those working in customer service deal better with the angry customers they service. The AI, designed specifically for a bank, will train the reps to deal with customers who are really, really angry.

The firm is using two years worth of customer call data from four of Australia’s biggest banks to compile the necessary behaviour patterns for their AI. In the next six months a team of data scientists will build a model from these recording for banks and firms to use in order to find the best responses to irate customers. The AI is expected to swear, cuss, use derogatory language, and angrily hang up the phone. Using the models they plan to creat response scripts that will best placate pissed off customers.

Project Radiant, as it is called, is named for Isaac Asimov’s work that predicts humanity’s future. So far 500,000 AUD has already been invested in the project.

Personally, this writer would gladly spend hours swearing into the phone for a fraction of the price.