In case you’re not up to speed with ‘post-Ai lingo’, ‘bot’ is short for “robot”, and “robot” is the main tool used by the “artificial intelligence” system that is invading our lives with frightening speed and driving many people crazy (especially those who are in the second half of their life-spans).
Driving people crazy? Yes! Just listen to what a friend who has just relocated to Ghana, after many years of cold absorption in “Cornback” (Aburokyire, or UK for those who are only in the first part of their life-span).
He writes: ‘Opanin’, (this title immediately identifies me with his age-group and explains why he chose me to tell his story too!)
“I’ve been back for some years, but kept an account with a financial institution there in case an emergency arose in my life that required access to foreign funds.
“Without asking me, a very nice lady at the institution decided that she would enroll me into a scheme whereby I would not need to go in person to the institution if it became necessary for me to engage in a transaction. Even a telephone call would not be necessary. An ‘app’ on my mobile phone would handle everything for me.
“Now, I don’t do too many transactions, so I readily agreed.
Life went on as before. But then I came to Ghana. And just after I had arrived, COVID-19 hit both Britain and Ghana. Going back to the UK in the middle of the pandemic became an unattractive prospect, given my age and the gloomy reports about how the disease was affecting the British. Better enjoy the sunshine at Ogyakurom, I thought.
“And then one day, I discovered that I’d lost the phone with the ‘app’ on it! When I tried to access my account with a different phone, I got short shrift. The ‘app’ understandably wanted to ‘verify’ my ID before allowing me into the account (thank God it was so protective!) but it wouldn’t accept anything not produced in answer to its demands!
“Now, this was the frightening part: after the ‘app’ has refused me access to my account, it would tell me that it was passing me on to a member of the ‘help team’. It would warn me that a lot of people were using its systems, and so I might experience some minutes of silence on the line. Then it would put on some atrocious ‘music’.
“I would then hold on the line and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. One hour. Two hours. Then I would hang up.
Sometimes, it’ll get me to keep holding on, the ‘bot’ would actually LIE and tell me that I would be connected to the ‘Help Desk’ in ‘two minutes’. Big joke! Two hours again!
“I began to develop feelings of paranoia towards the ‘app’. Obviously, it had been programmed to keep me hanging on the line so that the institution could charge me while not connecting me to the service I wanted! (There was a warning that ‘charges’ could be incurred on certain calls!) Yes, the institution was set up to make profit for its owners, but should such a blatant fleecing of customers be allowed?
Who could affirm the claim that the customer was NOT being connected to the service he wanted because too many people were genuinely using the service at the time? Wasn’t it the institution that projected the number of call centres it thought it would need?
“I tried my luck every now and then,” the Diasporan continued, “I would do everything I was asked to do, but still no luck. What I resented most was that the ‘bot’ was almost always rejecting my responses to its requests without telling me why. And yet, it was also not allowing me to ‘appeal’ to real humans! Why? Because an ALGORITHM is created to act as if it was INFALLIBLE! If that is not tyranny, what is? Big businesses are trying it out. Will authoritarian governments be next?”
Already, Britain is in the throes of a major scandal, unprecedented in nature that was created for the British Post Office, after it used a software system called “Horizon” which the Post Office commissioned from a private company. As many as 1000, I repeat, 1000 subpostmasters who had been employed after normal routine enquiries on financial probity had been made on them, were suddenly “exposed” by the Horizon software to be indulging in false accounting and embezzlement of all sorts.
Many were jailed. Others lost their homes. All because the gullible bosses of the British Post Office believed that Artificial Intelligence could not go wrong! (See Google “The British Post Office Scandal”)
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