Using AI is much more hit and miss than executing the first google result blindly, which has been available since decades. And google didn’t cost us our jobs, so I am not afraid of AI.
I think AI will cause a massive wave of employment changes. I think people and companies are currently overreacting as to where/how it can and should be used to be effective, but capitalism will make sure in a few more years it is placed where it makes corporations the most money, regardless (and maybe in spite?) of the cost of jobs.
Yeah the biggest practical use of the current generation of LLMs is online astroturphing and viral marketing. AIs aren’t reliable enough (yet) for things that require correctness, but they’re damn good at saying a thing you want said over and over in countless different ways.
Customer service (aka customer support chat bots) will also try to make use of it, no doubt, but I’m skeptical about how much they’ll actually trust it for that. All it’ll take is one person figuring out how to make the Chipotle chat bot spout nazi propoganda or some shit before they go back to “dumb” chat bots lol
Search engines like Google have cost many people there job; the list of now-rare positions and/or duties associated with a position (thereby thinning the need for such employment) that search engines have replaced is long.
Yeah, when’s the last time anyone used a travel agent (though in fairness Google wasn’t the only reason that job fell into obscurity, as sites like Expedia also contributed).
Travel agents are still widely used by small and medium sized businesses. It’s much faster to say “Get these two people to London for these days” in an email instead of manually looking for flight tickets and hotels.
But I haven’t heard of anyone using them for private trips in a long time.
In 20 years of business travel across many countries and industries, I have been happy with the agent’s choices maybe four times.
These days I skip the corp agent and just book tickets myself, then expense them. Fewer layovers, better seat choices, and having my own name on travel plans is a ton better than I get from someone who is just trying to close a ticket and get someone from A to B.
A nice side effect is that my trips are usually cheaper than colleagues who use the agent, so I never have to justify why I did it myself.
Why would a small business, but not a big business, use a travel agent?
(It’s true that at least the big business I worked at didn’t, although it did have its own internal search engine for finding flights and hotels with approved companies.)
Well, TIL. I’ve never worked at a small/mid sized business, my jobs have always had dedicated travel coordinators for that type of stuff. Interesting to know, though!
and honestly, from what I can tell, you would be a fool not to use one if you are planning to go somewhere you have never been and want it all mapped out for you. They have access to things that you cant find in a google search
Remember when googling was done by (assuming this info couldn’t be found in the lexicon) calling directly to the source and asking the receptionist?
I remember my dad and uncle couldn’t decide when they thought Coca Cola was founded, so they went to the phonebook, found the number for Coca Cola and just asked. They were happy to help, too. I also remember calling directly to the publisher for Disney comics to ask how much certain comics were, and they sent us a form in the mail that we would fill out to order the specific books we wanted, which then arrived in the mail like 2 weeks later. Pretty much the internet but with extra steps, mandatory human interaction and extremely long wait times lol.
Using AI is much more hit and miss than executing the first google result blindly, which has been available since decades. And google didn’t cost us our jobs, so I am not afraid of AI.
I think AI will cause a massive wave of employment changes. I think people and companies are currently overreacting as to where/how it can and should be used to be effective, but capitalism will make sure in a few more years it is placed where it makes corporations the most money, regardless (and maybe in spite?) of the cost of jobs.
Spoiler, they’re going to use it to sell people stuff.
Yeah the biggest practical use of the current generation of LLMs is online astroturphing and viral marketing. AIs aren’t reliable enough (yet) for things that require correctness, but they’re damn good at saying a thing you want said over and over in countless different ways.
Customer service (aka customer support chat bots) will also try to make use of it, no doubt, but I’m skeptical about how much they’ll actually trust it for that. All it’ll take is one person figuring out how to make the Chipotle chat bot spout nazi propoganda or some shit before they go back to “dumb” chat bots lol
Search engines like Google have cost many people there job; the list of now-rare positions and/or duties associated with a position (thereby thinning the need for such employment) that search engines have replaced is long.
Yeah, when’s the last time anyone used a travel agent (though in fairness Google wasn’t the only reason that job fell into obscurity, as sites like Expedia also contributed).
Travel agents are still widely used by small and medium sized businesses. It’s much faster to say “Get these two people to London for these days” in an email instead of manually looking for flight tickets and hotels.
But I haven’t heard of anyone using them for private trips in a long time.
In 20 years of business travel across many countries and industries, I have been happy with the agent’s choices maybe four times. These days I skip the corp agent and just book tickets myself, then expense them. Fewer layovers, better seat choices, and having my own name on travel plans is a ton better than I get from someone who is just trying to close a ticket and get someone from A to B.
A nice side effect is that my trips are usually cheaper than colleagues who use the agent, so I never have to justify why I did it myself.
Why would a small business, but not a big business, use a travel agent?
(It’s true that at least the big business I worked at didn’t, although it did have its own internal search engine for finding flights and hotels with approved companies.)
Well, TIL. I’ve never worked at a small/mid sized business, my jobs have always had dedicated travel coordinators for that type of stuff. Interesting to know, though!
You’ve had “in-house” travel agents and you didn’t realize it! ;)
travel agents are still around, I know one
and honestly, from what I can tell, you would be a fool not to use one if you are planning to go somewhere you have never been and want it all mapped out for you. They have access to things that you cant find in a google search
How do you think Expedia, et al, function? 😅
Remember when googling was done by (assuming this info couldn’t be found in the lexicon) calling directly to the source and asking the receptionist?
I remember my dad and uncle couldn’t decide when they thought Coca Cola was founded, so they went to the phonebook, found the number for Coca Cola and just asked. They were happy to help, too. I also remember calling directly to the publisher for Disney comics to ask how much certain comics were, and they sent us a form in the mail that we would fill out to order the specific books we wanted, which then arrived in the mail like 2 weeks later. Pretty much the internet but with extra steps, mandatory human interaction and extremely long wait times lol.