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TECHNOLOGY
The Next Luxury Item for the Rich: Talking to Humans
Technology keeps dehumanizing us
I remember what it was like to pick up the phone, call my doctor and speak directly to a person who knew me by name. That’s gone now.
In the future, just talking to another person might be a luxury only the rich can afford. Having a real human say, “How can I help you?” will likely cost $100 per hour.
The rest of us will be stuck arguing with bots.
The trend isn’t new
I didn’t realize until I started thinking about it just how many human interactions have already gone away. Do you know that some people used human-run answering services before answering machines and voicemail came along? That option disappeared a long time ago, but it was one of the first human-on-human interactions to go away.
I took my young grandson to a casual restaurant recently that used to have actual servers come to your table to take your order. I hadn’t been there for a long time, but discovered that now they want you to walk in and enter your order on a touchscreen. When your food is ready, you collect it and carry it to the table yourself. You fetch your own condiments and drinks and clean up after yourself when you are done.
