Do they call that "ASS"? "AI" just seems so tame sometimes.
Somewhere in the depths of this blog is an earlier rant on AI failing on the job, specifically manning the phone lines at my pharmacy. That is, unless you consider its job is actually to annoy and confuse customers until they either take their business elsewhere, or simply refuse to refill their meds any more and just crawl off and die.
Sometimes that almost does seem the more sensible option.
There's a lot of uneasiness about AI these days. People are so leery of getting bad information online that Google offers the option of cutting it out of its system completely (just one search at a time though) when you simply add -AI (minus sign with AI ) at the end of your question. Three key strokes and AI's gone... until the next inquiry when you have to block it again. (Should I repeat that again?)
There was a repeat run of a TV show earlier this week, NCIS Sydney, where first AI appeared in a much too friendly fridge, creeping certain characters out and amusing others at their expense... because we're supposed to think mean is funny, I guess, It was followed by the main plot of AI being put in drones and killing people it considered a threat. Spoiler alert: it opens with killing a kid.
In the real world, people as yet unidentified around the Twin Cities apparently fear AI in "flock" cameras so much for tracking them in their cars, that daily there are increasing reports of them being stolen by cutting down the entire pole of them and removing them, a whole "flock" at a time. They get replaced, with tax dollars which could go elsewhere or stay in our pockets. Such is our fear when a system isn't restricted. The three laws of robotics are still just fiction. (Read Asimov.)
My issue is nowhere so scary, just annoying or amusing, depending on my mood of the moment. I'm assuming the big pharmacy chain my Part D insurance approves of is cutting prices by installing machines for routine tasks so they could cut costs from not employing real people. Shame on them! Every one of the people I've met across their counter has been doing a great job, on their feet all day, non stop, error free over the years. The lines we wait in have gotten longer, enough that they have a twisting pattern of stanchion and rope barricades to guide people back and forth and back and forth while they inch their way forward to get their needed meds, or occasionally a chat with the pharmacist about a new med and how to take it or what not to combine it with. Were another covid-type pandemic to break out again, even two-foot distancing would be a royal challenge, nevermind six feet, with people surrounding you in all directions. Cozy! Cough, cough, gag, gasp, drop.
Is this a share-your-germs-and-we-can-sell-more-meds program? Just a beta test?
Meanwhile there's an AI manning their phones, very reluctant to give up its power to thwart understanding. The first thing it does, if you as a customer hadn't been paying attention to your meds levels at home, is to call you and remind you that it's time to refill something. Perhaps a few somethings. It identifies each by giving you part of its name, like this: "...starting with lis" or whatever the drug name starts with. If you are lucky, you not only know what it's referring to, you have only one medication starting with those three letters, and know whether it needs refilling yet or not. Perhaps you've been taken off of it for a bit, or have been under medical care in a hospital for a bit, and still have plenty in the bottle. Perhaps your doctor has changed the medication or the dose or even stopped it. Do you want that one? Are you sure? It's not like you can ask the AI a clarifying question. The AI doesn't give you more than a few seconds to decide if you need that medication in the next few days. My first impulse is always to hang up and go check what's low in my supplies.
But impulses aren't always actions, or I can be busy, or away from home or in a noisy place. So who knows what I'll do right then in response? There have been times I've responded to "you have three medications..." with a blanket yes and hung up. Even in retirement I can occasionally be busy. It can be sorted out at the counter in the.... OMG! Ten days before it's ready?!?! It really takes that long to refill? Somebody give this staff more human help!
Oh, right. Sighhh.
Then of course, nobody has apparently figured out how to get AI to correctly pronounce a medication name. My earlier rant on this centered around metoprolol. Humans have enough of a problem with that, usually inserting an "r", reading the first half of the name as "metro"instead of "meto". These days AI can't figure out how to divide longer (as in just 4 syllables) names and just where to accent the syllables. Monotone would be easier to understand most days. But many names are compound words made with one familiar term in it, or at least have a simple word incorporated into a product name.
Take the category of statins. They keep fats from building up in your blood vessels and clogging them. Everybody who needs to take one can pronounce it with the first syllable getting the emphasis. "STA - tin." The names get more complicated by brands distinguishing their statin from the next company's statin. The "STA-tin" part of the name is still pronounced the same, so the rest of the syllables get accents assigned accordingly, keeping the longer word as simple to pronounce as possible. The one I happen to be taking these days, because at my age one does take them... or else ... is atorvastatin. Pronounced uh-TOR-vuh-STAT-in. STA-tin is still emphasized the same for easy pronunciation and identification.
Did you think AI has been programmed to deal with that? Of course not! Obviously either that lesson was skipped or the programmer hasn't a clue how to pronounce the specialized terms of the art it will be used for.
But let's start that day back at its beginning. I had to go pick up some meds for Steve. I hadn't gotten my AI robocall that I had meds to pick up, but thought I'd ask while I was there. Mine was ready, I grabbed both, and drove home.
NOT the end of the matter. Because of course not, or why would I write this? Or you keep reading it? About an hour after getting home, I got a robocall telling me I had one to pick up.Timing is always fun, right? I had no clue what was to be picked up, whether I had just done so but the programming didn't pick up on outgoing orders to stop calls to "come and get them" after the fact, or there was something else in my cue I needed to go back for.... some other time. That was already a 22 mile trip. Gas costs more then the meds. I'd at least wait until I needed ice cream again.
So I called the store to find out. AI answered., as expected. Most times there is a way to get it to stop insisting it can handle your order faster and it will (protestingly) shoot you over to a real human. "Transfer prescription" usually works since it doesn't have any references in its records... yet. You go straight to a human with actual intelligence. For whatever reason I continued to deal with the store AI, asking what did I have ready to pick up? Maybe I was just bored? It's programmed to tell me it recognized my phone number, and asks me to verify I'm the name they just gave me from their records. (Hey guys, ANYBODY with my phone could fib and say yes and get my medical info just by calling your machine. You want security? Make me give you the name instead of you giving me the name !!!) But of course I did verify myself, and the AI provided its own rapid-fire unique version of the medication it still thought was in the store: "Ah-tor-VAY-stuh-TIN" !
Righhhhhht! I wonder if a pharmacist would actually understand that if I said it that way. I have met some who couldn't pronounce metoprolol but usually even it's not garbled that badly.
I think it's time to go play in the gardens for a while.
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