To think that automation/AI is probably costing more than it saves

[Lougle]

I've recently decided to switch our family to refillable antiperspirant. The brand we're using has a discounted subscription model. We each needed an applicator, then chose a fragrance. After checkout, we were offered a second fragrance for a reduced price, then after that checkout, a second applicator for a reduced price. So for each order, we ended up with two applicators and two fragrances, but over three transactions.

The orders came and there were errors in three out of the four orders. Order 1 had a deodorant instead of antiperspirant. Order 2 had two of fragrance A instead of fragrance A & fragrance B, and order 3 had two of fragrance B instead of fragrance B and fragrance C.

There is no way of speaking to anyone there, so you have to use an automated system. Click the order, select 'wrong product', then an script appears saying 'so sorry, we'll deal with it.'

An email arrives, automated, asking you to give details of the error. You have to do this for each order. Then it says it will sort it out.

The trouble is, that whatever/whoever received the details, didn't pick it up correctly, so they dispatched more wrong items.

When you go through to correct it, it then says 'I'm passing this to a human'. The human incorrectly assumed that I had accidentally made multiple subscriptions (I hadn't) so offered to streamline them. I explained that we deliberately made multiple subscriptions, and that in all of the kerfuffle, all they needed to do to make it right was to send out fragrance C antiperspirant.

Today, I've had a reply saying fragrance C isn't part of our subscription (it wouldn't be, it was the add-on offer) but they've amended the subscription and sent it out. So now I have 3 fragrance Cs on the way, when I only ordered 1.

If I had been able to speak to a human, it would have cost them so much less. Now we've got 6 antiperspirants on their way to replace 3 errors.

I just hope the govt is planning already to tax these companies enough to provide support for all those people who will lose their livelihoods through AI.

I can't imagine how they'll do this - it's so complex. We don't want another Starbucks situation where companies make huge fortunes out of us and pay little or no tax in this country.

I bet they're not even on the starting blocks with this, though.

It’s not just monetary costs. It costs the planet billions of gallons of water per day to keep Claude running. My husband is a computer programmer and he reckons that in 6-8 months the governments are going to tax the arse off AI companies for the sheer amount of water they use and AI is going to become much less a daily life thing again.

Yes it is, the big AI companies (Anthropic and OpenAI) are burning through other people’s money (primarily Amazon’s, Microsoft’s, and Oracle’s) at a completely unprecedented rate and have no credible route to profitability. Every single prompt loses them money. When the bubble bursts all we can hope for is that it’s a soft landing and it doesn’t take the rest of the US (and hence, world) economy with it.

The job losses aren’t happening in the majority of sectors. Obviously some people have been hit hard - copyrighted, graphic designers, junior programmers. But the mass layoffs promised by Sam Altman etc are not materialising, primarily because the promised productivity gains of AI are mostly hype. The capabilities of the models are plateau-Ing and the costs are spiralling - and users still aren’t paying the true costs. Once the money runs out and OpenAI and Anthropic are forced to ask users for the true cost of the service, demand will collapse.

I’m not sure it’s AI that’s caused your issue - could just be some back end issue with the website.

But - yes I think AI could end up costing more than it saves. This is however because people use credits to pay to use it - and these are very expensive.

Well I've just counted and it's taken 36 emails to sort out 3 errors (including dispatch emails), and it's cost them £55 in products to fix an order that was £100.

A quick phone call would have had it all sorted for about £15 and I could even have sent back the unopened incorrect items.