I think the greater threat to travel agents was the rise of self-planning travel internet sites like skyscanner and booking.com which make them mostly unnecessary. If travel agents have survived that, I don’t see how they wouldn’t survive LLM’s: presumably one of the reasons they survived is the preference for talking in person to a human being.
Yep, I know people who even opt against self-checkout because they enjoy things like a sense of community! I don’t claim AI isn’t going to greatly disrupt a number of jobs, but service jobs in particular seem like some of the most resistant, especially if people get wealthier from AI and have more money to spend on niceties.
I’m not sure it going to feel like a zoom call with a colleague any time soon. That’s a pretty high bar IMO that we ain’t anywhere near yet. Many steps aren’t yet there which include
(I’m probably misrepresenting a couple of these due to lack of expertise but something like...)
1) Video quality (especially being rendered real time) 2) Almost insta-replying 3) Facial warmth and expressions 4) LLM sounding exactly like a real person (this one might be closest) 5) Reduction in processing power required for this to be a norm. Having thousands of these going simultaneously is going to need a lot. (again less important)
I would bet against Avatars being this high fidelity in 3 years a in common use because I think LLM progress is tailing off and there are multiple problems to be solved to get there—but maybe I’m a troglodyte...
That would not contribute to my friends’ sense of community or trust in other people (or, for that matter, the confidence that if a real service person gives you a bad experience or advice, that you have a path to escalate it)
I think the greater threat to travel agents was the rise of self-planning travel internet sites like skyscanner and booking.com which make them mostly unnecessary. If travel agents have survived that, I don’t see how they wouldn’t survive LLM’s: presumably one of the reasons they survived is the preference for talking in person to a human being.
Yep, I know people who even opt against self-checkout because they enjoy things like a sense of community! I don’t claim AI isn’t going to greatly disrupt a number of jobs, but service jobs in particular seem like some of the most resistant, especially if people get wealthier from AI and have more money to spend on niceties.
Avatars are going to be extremely high fidelity. It will feel like a zoom call with a colleague, except you’re booking travel.
I’m not sure it going to feel like a zoom call with a colleague any time soon. That’s a pretty high bar IMO that we ain’t anywhere near yet. Many steps aren’t yet there which include
(I’m probably misrepresenting a couple of these due to lack of expertise but something like...)
1) Video quality (especially being rendered real time)
2) Almost insta-replying
3) Facial warmth and expressions
4) LLM sounding exactly like a real person (this one might be closest)
5) Reduction in processing power required for this to be a norm. Having thousands of these going simultaneously is going to need a lot. (again less important)
I would bet against Avatars being this high fidelity in 3 years a in common use because I think LLM progress is tailing off and there are multiple problems to be solved to get there—but maybe I’m a troglodyte...
That would not contribute to my friends’ sense of community or trust in other people (or, for that matter, the confidence that if a real service person gives you a bad experience or advice, that you have a path to escalate it)