Interesting thought, haven’t even considered this.
Discussion
Maybe you'll have to pick up the phone and call him, and if the AI is so good, he can’t tell you’re human, you’ll have to go to his place of work and see him in person like it’s pre-telephone.
Same thing happened with spam phone calls — no one answers a call from an unknown number or checks voicemail anymore.
I mean spam phone calls are useless, but these would be real customers.
And if everyone is using AIs then what's the harm (I guess)?
Just a more efficient market?
10x better UX for the customer, so guaranteed to happen. Best to respond!
but if they're calling every plumber in town, they’re not real customers, only potential ones, and if there are 50 nearby plumbers, it’s only a 1/50 chance — not worth your time.
And 1 in 50 spam calls are probably something you want to answer, you just can’t tell which ones.
If everyone is doing it via some simple service then you better answer all
Too much time evaluating low-probability leads.
If you were the only one with AI, it would give you an advantage, but once everyone has it, you have no advantage, and it’s a hassle for everyone.
Kind of like when some NBA team figured out three point shots were more efficient than two-point jump shots, got an edge. Then everyone copied it, the whole league is just chucking from deep, the game is way worse, and no one gets any advantage because they’re all doing it.
Not saying it will go down like this, but there are some innovations that are great individually, but net negative collectively.
It's a brain teaser all right.
I think it leads to a more efficient market, and increased efficiency is a net positive. (Maybe?)
But it also probably means eroding margin for everything. (Or, worse, all margin accrues to the AI companies)
More efficiency everyone wins in the long term. Until that matures someone will be better off than others
True. But more pressing is— if you can't tell the difference between real and fake customers— then what do you do?
probably what you do now which is ignore spam calls, but rely on customer referrals who use the name of a current customer as proof of viable lead via text. If the AI can spoof this, though, then they’d probably have a private number existing customers only share with real people or something. And if the AI can get hold of that, then some other proof of viable lead, worst case being showing up in person.
I’m bullish on time-saving AI, but just like email and spam calls, I’d expect some bad second-order effects.
It's a brain teaser right.
I don't think it stops at plumbers btw.
Email your local rep.
Lawfare.
List goes on...