Can I Talk To A Human?

On Sunday night, our main sewer drain clogged. All my plunging availeth nothing, and the toilet was backing up into the tub. We needed a plumber, stat.

I called the top three organic search results, and my first call was answered by a cheerful, young female voice. Her replies were natural English, reflecting (but not parroting) what I was saying, and quickly. No lag. Could it be an AI receptionist?

After setting up my appointment, I asked: "Are you software or human?"

Pause.

"I'm a virtual receptionist designed to give you great service!"

Usually, in such situations, my prompt is, "Can I talk to a human?" But I already had my appointment, so I moved on.

The second place: no answer.

The third place I called, I talked with a middle-aged woman who sounded tired. "You're next in line, but I dunno how long the tech will be at his current job," she mumbled. Clearly not a bot, at least at this stage of conversational AI.

The woman - I'll call her Cheryl - took my name down as Dick. I didn't correct her. If I'm talking with a human, I'll answer to Nick, Ric, Dick... anything ending in ick.

The bot for Company One got my name right on the first try. It had said it needed to call my landlord before it could send someone out. My landlord never got a call.

Gustavo from Company Three showed up in less than an hour. He was an older man from Portugal, who told me proudly of his grown daughter while he snaked the line. Once it was clear, he ran a camera all the way from the access point to where it joined the city's lines and live-narrated the video feed, explaining the issues that had caused the clog. We traded poop jokes, I paid him, and we called it a night.

We don't have robot plumbers, yet. But if and when we do, I have no confidence they'll be better than Gustavo. We already have robot receptionists, and they weren't better than Cheryl at getting a plumber to my house on a Sunday evening.

Go call a human.