Vactan - disappointing company response to 2nd bad bottle

[Russ T]

6 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I think Emma could well be an AI bot, regurgitation the standard line from her trainers, who are almost certainly not the Vactan people who just bought her in.

How can we find out for certain? It's a bit of a worry if one cannot tell real people from artificial ones.

[Jon57]

2 minutes ago, Russ T said:

How can we find out for certain? It's a bit of a worry if one cannot tell real people from artificial ones.

Bit like canal forums then 😁

[MtB]

16 minutes ago, Russ T said:

How can we find out for certain? It's a bit of a worry if one cannot tell real people from artificial ones.

 

This AI detector says Emma is human!

 

https://gptzero.me/

 

 

 

 

[Russ T]

Just now, MtB said:

 

This AI detector says Emma is human!

 

https://gptzero.me/

 

 

 

 

What's it say about me? No, don't answer that.....barely human.

[Lily Rose]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

This AI detector says Emma is human!

 

https://gptzero.me/

 

 

 

 

 

But they would say that wouldn't they!

 

They're all in it together I tell ya. They'll soon realise they don't need us any more.

 

[MtB]

10 minutes ago, Russ T said:

What's it say about me? No, don't answer that.....barely human.

 

I pasted one of my own posts into it and it said it was not artificial intelligence, but genuine stupidity. 

[Russ T]

6 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I pasted one of my own posts into it and it said it was not artificial intelligence, but genuine stupidity. 

Is there an artificial stupidity search engine? 

[magnetman]

Yes. 

[alias]

3 minutes ago, Russ T said:

Is there an artificial stupidity search engine? 

 

Some of the so called AIs have been spotted hallucinating wrong answers. Does that count?

[magnetman]

Key context:

 

Artificial stupidity has been used in AI to "dumb down" responses, like in early Turing test scenarios or video game opponents, to make a system appear fallible or more relatable.

[Tony Brooks]

45 minutes ago, Russ T said:

How can we find out for certain? It's a bit of a worry if one cannot tell real people from artificial ones.

 

One way I have tried it in the past is to ask it for the email address of customer services and/or the managing director. They often waffle and direct you their webpage that you have already looked at, which does not show such information.

[alias]

31 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Artificial stupidity has been used in AI to "dumb down" responses, like in early Turing test scenarios or video game opponents, to make a system appear fallible or more relatable.

 

Why would making an AI pretend to be fallible make it more appealing for users? Genuine question. 

Edited July 30, 2025 by alias

[magnetman]

The answer above was part of an AI generated response. 

 

Maybe they don't want people knowing how powerful it is and appearing to be fallible makes it more relaxing. 

 

 

 

 

As suggested humans can relate more easily to something which is fallible. 

 

If one were to introduce something which did not present as having this basic weakness humans would probably reject it quite quickly. 

 

It's behind you !

[Russ T]

13 minutes ago, magnetman said:

As suggested humans can relate more easily to something which is fallible. 

That can't possibly be true, otherwise politicians would be more popular.

51 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

One way I have tried it in the past is to ask it for the email address of customer services and/or the managing director. They often waffle and direct you their webpage that you have already looked at, which does not show such information.

What are they if they don't answer at all?

[magnetman]

3 minutes ago, Russ T said:

That can't possibly be true, otherwise politicians would be more popular.

Have you not noticed that they are running the place? 

 

That seems to show a fair degree of popularity to me. 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

3 minutes ago, Russ T said:

That can't possibly be true, otherwise politicians would be more popular.

What are they if they don't answer at all?

Probably human hoping you will get fed up and go away. The AI bots seem to want to answer your question, but just go around in circles.

[Russ T]

1 minute ago, magnetman said:

Have you not noticed that they are running the place? 

 

That seems to show a fair degree of popularity to me. 

 

 

Ah, yes. Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

[alias]

25 minutes ago, magnetman said:

The answer above was part of an AI generated response. 

 

Maybe they don't want people knowing how powerful it is and appearing to be fallible makes it more relaxing. 

 

 

 

 

As suggested humans can relate more easily to something which is fallible. 

 

If one were to introduce something which did not present as having this basic weakness humans would probably reject it quite quickly. 

 

It's behind you !

 

I think there are a couple of different perspectives to consider, and my focus was on the first:

 

1. A person using an AI tool to make their own tasks easier.

If I'm thinking of doing that I give it some tests on things I'm familiar with.  If it gets things wrong and can't explain on interrogation why it gets those answers wrong then I'm suspicious of relying on it for anything else.

 

2. A person is subject to a company deploying AI to reduce costs of providing people to respond to customers.

Here a bot failing to understand an issue is irritating but useful. I've found that dealing with an AI interface failing to respond usefully as a customer is not relatable but irritating. However I have found that the quickest way out of the doom loop is to respond to any bot questions with nonsense answers, as that tends to accelerate your query to one of the few remaining humans still there.

 

In either instance though a mistaken machine response is way less forgivable than a human mistake subject to reasoning and persuasion. 

 

It might mean that I'm atypical. It has been suggested.

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2025 by alias

[magnetman]

I have never interacted with an online 'help desk' interface. Whenever one turns up I ignore it like the plague. 

 

 

[alias]

2 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I have never interacted with an online 'help desk' interface. Whenever one turns up I ignore it like the plague. 

 

If you are talking about AI driven stuff in many ways it's similar to dealing with an old style call centre operative forced to read questions from a screen and try to match answers from a specified list on their screen, even if the suggested list didn't fit the situation.

 

The humans though sometimes used to fess up and say that they knew that question was irrelevant to the issue in hand but they had to tick a box on that screen to get to the next screen that they knew they could use to fix the problem. 

[magnetman]

1 minute ago, alias said:

 

If you are talking about AI driven stuff in many ways it's similar to dealing with an old style call centre operative forced to read questions from a screen and try to match answers from a specified list on their screen, even if the suggested list didn't fit the situation.

 

The humans though sometimes used to fess up and say that they knew that question was irrelevant to the issue in hand but they had to tick a box on that screen to get to the next screen that they knew they could use to fix the problem. 

 

I tend to end up having quite a pleasant conversation with human operators on the phone. I think they are probably not really allowed to do this so one must introduce genuine content to keep it going. 

[alias]

6 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

I tend to end up having quite a pleasant conversation with human operators on the phone. I think they are probably not really allowed to do this so one must introduce genuine content to keep it going. 

 

Unfortunately the economics of delivering intelligent empathic human interaction are less appealing to those seeking to deliver value to shareholders than use of AI. If only the experience currently delivered with AI was anything like as good.

 

More recently started companies seem better at this stuff than long established ones, so perhaps user experience (or UX as they call it) will improve.

 

[magnetman]

My aim is to stop consuming. 

 

It seems to be the problem of consuming and the attendant expectations which cause the undesirable outcomes. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2025 by magnetman

[RAP]

I have used Vactan and Aquasteel previously but have found Owatrol to be a far more reliable and better product. 

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, magnetman said:

I have never interacted with an online 'help desk' interface. Whenever one turns up I ignore it like the plague. 

 

 

The trouble with a plague is that it happens to you whether you ignore it or not.