The X-files turns out to have been a Reality TV program
The All Extra Helpings Edition: Five stories that keep on going PLUS a real AI implementation that damaged customer service story
SECONDI - 5 Extra Helpings stories that keep on going like the Energizer Bunny
Last week I wrote about fantasy vs reality. Dodgy Emperor Elon’s Doge-ists’s focus on job purges has resulted in the FBI revealing that they have a top secret group investigating UFOs1. Just like that the 90s TV cult show The X-files goes from fantasy to reality. The FBI don’t want any layoffs as they take their mandate seriously: "The FBI investigates Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena when there is potential for a violation of federal law”. Such as the interstate transport of alien abductees or traveling faster than Mach 7. We already knew that The Pentagon had such a group, but they were hiding in plain sight, calling the group AARO - All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office - which could easily be a department in a DEI group or an error correcting complaints department. Maybe they were the ones mindlessly using DeepSeek. If the FBI’s group is so good why didn’t they recognize the alien nature of Master Musk?
Follow up on my gamers have opportunities for teledriver story: It turns out there are even more opportunities for graduates of Fortnite and Call of Duty university. From real experience obtained during the Ukraine-Russia war, military strategists believe that people who have a gamer background would make excellent pilots, as they are running short of them to operate military drones. “Gamers make great drone pilots because they are used to fast-moving situations on the screen, just like in real drone operations”. Naturally, they need to learn that there is no restart option, but I bet the pay is much higher than for a teledriver.
Way back in October I warned about the dangers to children playing with the popular game stack Roblox. Well, the stock market punished Roblox last week when they were flat on subscriber growth; in non-stock market jargon that means the kids are staying away. This game platform, aimed at children and teenagers, is rampant with abuse. It deserves the stock market punishment until they get it fully cleaned up.
Just last week, I pointed some fun at the lack of protective prowess of the Pentagon when they had employees willingly using China resident DeepSeek. Now legislators, who shouldn’t really be forced into the role of cybersecurity protectors, have rolled out a new bill to stop the use of DeepSeek on government machines. It is a sad comment when American legislators are on the cutting edge of cybercrime thinking.
In January, I gave OpenAI credit for delaying their of an AI agent because they appeared to be prudent. Wrong! It was released by the end of January with the compelling name of Operator. (Evidently these firms are not using AI tools for catchier names). Judging by this reporter’s trial run OpenAI had to drop the Smooth adjective from its name. But this phrase - “it’s prone to the same sort of hallucinating” - is all I need to know to not trust it operating on my behalf. I haven’t hallucinated since the mid-1970s after smoking a super doobie I received as a birthday present. Here is another little pearl: “At times, Operator also got lost, forcing me to take control of the browser and get the agent back on track”. The article lists a few more problems but who complains when you are only paying $200 per month. It seems like AI products are shipping in order to save money on testers, because evidently that is what we are for.
SPECIAL DISH: A real life “plug kicked out of the wall” example
Last Thursday, I said that I believed that AI, being unreliably unreliable, should not be used for large and important business applications. I felt that it is prudent for leaders to hold back until AI is ready for prime time. On Friday, I got a real life example to support my belief, in the crucial customer service area.
I think I mentioned that we are about to go away to Costa Rica. I have an AVION Infinite Visa card, which comes with lots of extras. One of those extras is that you can waive the collision damage insurance premium for car rentals. The car rental agency in Costa Rica wanted me to get a letter from Visa substantiating that we qualified for this. In the past I have obtained these CDW letters easily. I looked it up online which indicated it should take 10 minutes and gave me the VISA customer service telephone number to call.
That’s when I ran into an issue with my bank’s AI automated attendant. It took me 45 minutes across 7 calls in order to reach a fully qualified person who could handle my request. Silly me thinking that I could actually say CDW letter on the first call and have the automated attendant understand what I said. I thought that if it was a VISA AI attendant it must have been trained on every feature and nuance of all their VISA card offerings.
Evidently not. At no time did this attendant ever repeat back what it thought I had said. Instead, it just mindlessly directed me to the wrong things, like their website in order to apply for a new card, or it said, ”I don’t understand what you are asking for”, or three times just hung up on me. I learned to say “ can I speak to someone” repeatedly, and after a considerable badgering from me, the attendant would reluctantly grant me access to a human being. Unfortunately, the first two human beings also had no idea what I was talking about.
Other annoying features of this AI attendant was that it just randomly would give me some basic features of their credit cards or tell me my balance or other complete non sequiturs that I HAD NEVER ASKED FOR. On the third time I coaxed this prickly attendant into passing me on to someone who could really listen, I finally got a person who understood what I was saying. They gave me another number that I had to call instead. 45 minutes just to start doing what I wanted, which then took the stated 10 minutes.
I did some DeepSeek research. My bank is very proud of their “AI-powered conversational, virtual assistant”. By reading the details I saw that a goal was that they wanted to reduce human interaction. They proclaimed that it was a natural and user-friendly experience. I’m not sure hanging up on your customers three times with a curt goodbye, or talking over them by offering non-sequitur cross-selling is user-friendly.
My bank also had the gall to state that they recognized AI as a core competency. Well, it’s not yet for them, or for the named third-party consulting firm that helped with the implementation . Things must’ve changed dramatically since 2020 when I retired, for when I was running consulting projects my clients would have fired us for providing this bad of a solution. Banking switching costs are high but I will be shifting one account at a time until I just disappear completely off their books, voting with my feet.
That’s it until Thursday. I am hoping to keep up the twice per week newsletters while travelling, starting towards the end of this month, but we are going to some awfully remote spots so publishing frequency might be more unreliable than it already is.
Obviously count me as an unbeliever as I’m still using the very dated UFO term. It’s not that I don’t believe that there might be other life in the universe, but I think it’s highly likely to be very strange, single celled organisms of unimagineable types. If more sophisticated life was real I think that we would really know it if they were here on earth.
Well, this was a fun read given that I’m such a fan of The X-Files. And wow, can I relate to the frustration of an automated phone system. Oye.
So, the FBI is now moonlighting as Mulder and Scully lol?
I guess even the feds need a little sci-fi in their lives. But how did they miss Elon Musk’s alien vibes if they're so good at spotting anomalies? Maybe he’s just too advanced for their pay grade.
That customer service nightmare is something alright. And we will see even more of it.
That’s not AI. That’s a glitch with attitude. If this is their ‘core competency,’ I’d hate to see their idea of a failure. Switching banks might be a hassle, but at this point, it’s less about convenience and more about self-preservation. This was an entertaining read David - thank you Sir!