Chatbot gives better advice than HR

Question:

I told a senior person in human resources (HR) about a serious difficulty I was having at work. They said they would investigate the source of the problem. Weeks went by, and I politely went back to the HR person and asked if they had made any progress. They ended up saying the investigation was “ongoing” but it was obvious from our conversation and the look on their face that they had forgotten about my report. I told another person in HR, and they said I was being impatient.

At the same time I was experimenting with [the AI chatbot] ChatGPT in my spare time. One night I decided to see what would happen if I ran my work worry past ChatGPT. The response I received was far more compassionate and practically useful than any dealing I had with HR. At one point in our ‘discussion’, ChatGPT made it clear that although they were not an alternative to professional support, I was welcome to contact them any time if I wanted help or had any questions. I became a little emotional!

How the heck is a robot more thoughtful and heartfelt than humans in an HR department?

Answer:

Advances in artificial intelligence seem to have progressed quickly over the last few years, so it’s not surprising to hear that a chatbot can respond with sensitivity to a serious matter like yours. What makes your story extraordinary is that it could seem more sensitive – more compassionate and thoughtful, as you put it – than the people at your work presumably hired (at least in part) for their tact, discretion and ability to deal with involved problems.

It’s tempting to write this off as an aberration: a particularly bad HR team and a particularly good response from an artificial intelligence chat model. And to some degree it is: I’m not going to declare that everyone should now turn to Siri or Alexa for guidance and succour. But I think there’s a cautionary tale in your story buried beneath an eye-opening headline and dizzying first couple of paragraphs.

People have been talking about “robots taking our jobs” for years. Writers have been talking about it for well over a hundred. And while it’s true that some specific jobs have been partly or completely automated, until relatively recently most have assumed that a wholesale machine takeover of entire sectors was way off in the future. I think systems like ChatGPT have started to erode that assumption.

A lot has already been written on what an AI language model of this type can and can’t do. I’ve read a lot of bold statements (admittedly from non-experts like me) about what AI will never be able to do. One oft-repeated line is that robots will never be able to replace “human-touch services”.