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At least some part of Meta AI is being built and trained right here in the Philippines. BPO workers at companies like Accenture spend their days training AI prompts and responses on Facebook posts and Instagram reels so the social media giant can roll out a new feature next year. With AI, BPO workers say the demands of work have gotten tougher. Employees went from having 200 seconds, to go through each prompt or response, to 170 seconds now. In the world's call center capital, agents reported answering double the volume of calls under pressure from a monitoring AI to finish each one in less than 7 minutes. "It's like we've become the robots," says one employee at Concentrix. At Concentrix, an AI program scores an agent's each call on their tone, pitch, the mood of the call, use of positive language, if they avoided interrupting or speaking over a caller, how long he put the caller on hold, and how quickly he resolved the issue. One agent said he nudges customers toward high-scoring responses: “yes,” “perfect,” “great.” Every stutter, pause, mispronounced word, or deviation from a script earns him a demerit. "I have to please the AI," said the employee on it's metrics. The program grades an agent, and, though base pay remains fixed, continually underperforming could mean probation, no incentives, or even termination. “AI is supposed to make our lives easier, but I just see it as my boss,” he said. New story with Rest of World