Not exactly the brightest of industries, collection companies are now poised to get rid of what’s left of them that is human.
At least that is the plan of Skit.ai, a company based in New York and Bangalore, which aims to sell its AI-assisted collection technology to debt collector companies. The service would be more efficient, less prone to errors, and above all much cheaper and easy to replicate on a large scale.
What are the promises of Skit and its competitors?
In the blog post announcing the release of her tool, Skit presents the tool she is developing as follows: a “digital agent”, which would actually be a voice generated and using text-to-speech technology in real time and dynamically to be able to hold a conversation with a real human being. And ask him for money. The use of machine learning would also make these calls more and more “effective” with time.
If all this could easily be achieved by sadistic or desperate humans, the main interest of the skit offer is – surprise – the profitability it allows. Because this company guarantees that its technology will be able to make millions of calls in just a few days, and this for a fraction of the cost that they would have represented if they had been made by humans. Above all, it would make it easier to manage the rapid increase or decrease in demand, since the company would not have to worry about labor rights or dignity.
The consequences for the people on the other end of the line
While it is difficult to blame private companies for looking for ways to increase their profitability, let us remember that the market for debt collectors is not, far from it, itself in financial distress. Thus, while personal debt fell slightly in France in 2022, this is not representative of the overall movement in the sector: the United States thus reached, last December, its historic record for debt contracted by private individuals. It was therefore urgent to find a way to harass the poor on an industrial scale.
In their communication, Skit and his ilk present their solutions as effective means of obtaining satisfaction, while having an approach that is both firm and empathetic. This last word is probably more intended for public relations than for their clients, whose well-known techniques of harassment and legal intimidation cannot frankly claim it. There is no doubt, finally, that over-indebted people will find a robot that asks them for money that is more dystopian than empathetic.
For many, the development of Artificial Intelligence represents a major risk for many jobs, while others argue that it will undoubtedly improve the condition of humanity. At least half of them are right.
Sources: Motherboard, Futuristic
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