AI & Boiling the Frog

OK, so this isn't a blog post specific to Amateur Radio -- but about technology and customer service.   So indirectly, it's about a lot of things that impact our daily lives.

We now live in a hyper connected world.  It's difficult for most of the civilized world to imagine going through a week, or a day without some type of internet related transaction or interaction.   Make a payment? Internet.   Need a part? The parts list is online.   Need help with some product?  Chat line.     And 90% of the time, we have no idea whether we are actually dealing with a person, much less where in the world they are located, and or whether they speak your language effectively.     All in the name of "efficiency", I suppose.

Here's a problem I run into with all of this…maybe you as well.    When I need to communicate with an actual Human Being, technology seems to do everything in its power to prevent that from happening.    Automated telephone response systems are failures, IMHO, for all but the most mundane of requests.   Chat systems are staffed with either bots or employees who are great at pointing me back to the main web site -- for all but the simplest questions.  “Chat ended” is a too common phrase these days.

Certain things, like looking up a manual, finding a part, placing an order, getting generic instruction, have been simplified and improved with an appropriate use of technology.   I applaud this.

But.   Customer Service, overall, has devolved and gotten steadily worse the past two decades.  Need to talk to someone?   Good luck as you navigate the labyrinth of voicemail, chat bots, circular websites, emails that can't be replied to, etc.  It is a gauntlet purpose-built to keep you, the customer, at arm's length.    I have the strong feeling that companies, increasingly, do not want to actually interact with customers ... they'd rather foist the latest AI driven code on their revenue source, and then read a dashboard about the experience.

The mainstream media has recently upped the hype around the use of AI, with click bait type articles with "Terminator" implications... it is always something in the future.   The truth is that AI is integral to many companies' Customer Service functions -- and has been for the better part of a decade!  We are the frogs being slowly boiled by AI.    Little by little, we are communicating less with actual human beings and more with some microprocessor that is programmed to fool-us into thinking otherwise.    Literally, this is de-humanizing.   In my opinion, it doesn't make for better business outcomes in the long term.

Who are going to be the break-out companies over the next few years that understand this need for human connectivity and provide it, in a way that becomes a major differentiator over their competition?   I for one will make it a priority to buy their goods and services, even at a premium price.   The joy of a cheap product fades quickly when you need support and can't actually get it.

https://techsee.me/blog/ai-customer-service/

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/ai/customer-service

Kure Beach - 2022

 I'm on our annual family vacation to the Carolina coast for the week -- heading back to the Charlotte area on Saturday May 28.   It's been exactly what we needed -- three generations doing what relaxes them most.   Good food and conversation, walks on the beach, bike rides, a visit to the NC Aquarium, a little golf, and a little radio time for me!

This year, we're in a home about a block from the Atlantic Ocean.  Like many homes around here, the "main" house is built on stilts (this area is known as Hurricane Alley -- earning that reputation in the 1950's with storms like Hazel) -- and it has a number of porches which are perfect for antennas.   I opted for an end fed 41' wire fed through a 9:1 UnUn along with about 30' of counterpoise; the main radiator slopes down at about a 45 degree angle to an empty lot next door.    The KX3 is connected to the feedpoint with only 4' of RF-400 coax -- and I'm powering the setup via a rechargeable 12v DC supply (by Bioenno).

Results have been encouraging, with "you're only running 10 watts?" being a common phrase in QSOs.   I've learned over the years that if you can power your rig with a battery, and minimize the length of the feedline (in particular with non-resonant / and or unbalanced antennas that require a tuner), the receive noise level will be significantly reduced.     The rise in switching power supply noise and the like is very prevalent in many of the places we stay on vacation...with the rental properties filled to the brim with the latest Chinese made gadgets all having inadequate filtering.    Getting the antenna as far away from the noise sources, minimizing feedline pickup via choke filters and/or a small length of coax, and decoupling from the AC mains as much as possible have yielded far better noise floor performance.

I experimented with placing additional ferrite (mix 31) on the leads of my KX3 AC power supply yesterday. The DC lead comes shipped from the factory with a single ferrite cylinder of unknown mix.  (The power supply is found here:  https://proaudioeng.com/products/pae-kx33-low-rfi-ac-power-supply/) The purpose was to explore the receive floor differences between using it and a battery alone.  In my experience, this ProAudio PS  is very quiet -- however it can serve as a noise path from the AC mains  into your setup.   I watched the noise floor drop, significantly (about 2 S units), as I added a single snap on core to the AC power cord; there's no proof like direct observation!  Of course -- switching completely to battery power dropped it even further.  [There's a video online of this same effect -- you can hear the difference:  https://proaudioeng.com/common-mode-cm-currents/ ]  When I get back to the shop at home, I'll be permanently adding a few more ferrites to this switching mode power supply.

 

Continuing Interference on 40 Meters

 This morning around 1020Z, the RFI from a jammer (Cuba?) continues to take out the central part of our 40 meter band.   As an aside, good to see propagation from the South Pacific booming in... Radio New Zealand was a beautiful copy on 7,245 kHz -- about 75 kHz above the jammer.

40 Meters - 7/18/2021 1000Z