The other issue is that this further incentivizes companies to off-shore their support. A lot of the reason companies don't use it comes back to the reputational style issue. Where people don't want to feel like they are getting crappy support and having to deal with not understanding people.

This is a different kind of way of using AI to eliminate local jobs and allow them to more easily outsource it to countries with low labour costs and poor labour conditions.

While I would appreciate being able to understand them better, I would not at all support this. You could maybe make an argument that using this with local staff could have some merit. As at least then they are not exploiting cheap foreign labour. There are still people living within the country of the caller who may still have strong accents like in the example you gave about yourself.

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cik 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> The other issue is that this further incentivizes companies to off-shore their support

Why is this a problem? Why are we so attached to the notion that a role must be completed from a specific jurisdiction (outside of regulatory). If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered?

Plenty of small companies offshore early support, to reduce costs. In many cases this provides jobs in economies that otherwise doesn't have them, and can lead to a tech industry that in turn hires globally. There are several economies that received a boost this way, and now benefit.

I don't see the problem. Yes, there may be uncomfortable shuffling of roles, layoffs,etc. But, as a believer in globalization, this will just happen. Yes, it will impact me as well.

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dlenski an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered?

Okay, well that's easy then.

In general I am highly concerned about the negative social and productivity costs of remote work, in industries ranging from tech support to software development to medicine.

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charcircuit an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

>Why is this a problem?

Because it means that I will have to interact with foreigners instead of my own people. It means that a job that my people could have done gets sent off to the lowest bidder in an economy far away. It means that I get a lower quality service as I believe my people can do it better.

>Why are we so attached to the notion that a role must be completed from a specific jurisdiction (outside of regulatory).

Because in group preference along with wanting to win and be the best are human nature.

>If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered?

There is a difference between the location a job is done and who is doing the job. If I remote work from China, I am still American. Changing my location on planet earth didn't change who I am, nor does it change my values and work ethic.

>In many cases this provides jobs in economies that otherwise doesn't have them, and can lead to a tech industry that in turn hires globally.

Which I see as a bad thing as it means money and jobs that could have gone to my own country are leaving and being sent to another. I would rather have local companies invest in local AI than to hire foreigners.

>There are several economies that received a boost this way, and now benefit.

I would rather boost my own economy than someone else's.

	▲	intended 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		First off, I get the nationalist instinct. I don’t think it’s bad per se. However, it’s nearly the same global economy. At some point those issues in faraway places are the foreign policy issues in your localities. This is not a defense or argument in favor of hollowing out local economies. Sadly, cost arbitrage will remain a thing. One underused avenue to make it a more even playing field, is to exports labour and safety standards from the developed world. Arbitrage built from factories and sweat shops which have suicide nets should be anathema. This type of enforcement is well within the realms of possibility. FDA inspectors travel to the source factories in other countries to ensure they are compliant.