Published November 14, 2024
We’ve all had the experience—probably more times than we care to admit—of yelling into a phone receiver, “Just give me a human being!” after what feels like the umpteenth set of automated options on a customer service line. However, many of us have probably also found ourselves almost missing the clear and soothing tones of the automated assistant after being transferred to a customer service agent with an almost indecipherable foreign accent and, if possible, even less empathy and imagination than the robot we were previously speaking to. “Transfer me to your manager!” we may bark out if we’re having a particularly bad day.
New artificial intelligence companies like Sierra are promising to spare you that bad day, using generative AI to replace bad robots—and robotic humans—with genuinely helpful robots. The company, already valued at $4 billion, is one of several AI firms promising to revolutionize the global customer-service industry, trimming much of its $120 billion in annual labor costs and making life better for consumers at the same time.
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Brad Littlejohn was a Fellow in EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing and Evangelicals in Civic Life programs from 2022-2025. His wide-ranging research and writing encompasses work on the relation of digital technology and embodiment, the appropriate limits of free speech, the nature of freedom and authority in the Christian tradition, and the retrieval of a Protestant natural law ethic.
