The neighbourhood’s philosophical armistice with machine insincerity is complete
Lowri Griffiths Reports: Crouch End Has Made Peace With the AI Apology
I asked three people in the queue at the Crouch End Waitrose what they thought about AI being able to say sorry without meaning it. The first said she thought that was already how customer service worked. The second said he had noticed this on his banking app and decided it was fine. The third said she uses AI to write apology emails to her landlord and finds the AI’s version more convincing than her own, which is a separate philosophical problem but an important data point. North London has made peace with the insincere apology. The AI apology fits right in: the right vocabulary, the right regret, changes nothing, recognisable.
The Journalism of It
I cover North London life at the human level. The broadsheets have the theory. I have the queue. The London Prat publishes both, which is why I write for it. The UK opinion piece tradition covers the gap between performance of accountability and actual accountability. The Waitrose queue has reached the correct conclusion: the apology is the form, not the content. The form is now automated. The content was always the harder problem. I asked if this worried anyone. The first person said not really. The second said he supposed it should but was very tired. A fourth person said: are you writing this down? I said yes. She said: fair enough. This is Crouch End. Everything is accepted. Nothing is particularly surprising. The AI fits right in.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/ai-now-capable-of-saying-sorry-without-meaning-it/
