Bank draws workers in favor of the Chatbot, the rehiring after Chatbot is terrible at work

Companies around the world are currently rushing to reduce their workforce and replace them with AI. Often, it seems, this does not work for the companies involved. Example: a bank in Australia recently did it, but then had to ask his workers to return after he turned out that the chatbot he had launched to replace them could not cut the mustard.

Last month, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced that it was going to fire 45 customer service workers while deploying a new “vocal bot” fueled in AI that could do its job, reports Bloomberg. The bank said that the chatbot considerably reduced the volume of calls from the bank. However, the workers’ union got involved and said he determined that it was not the result.

The Syndicat of the Australia’s financial sector, which represents workers in the banking sector, called BS on the Bank’s complaints and engaged the ABC in a labor relations court. Now, it seems that the bank admitted to having made a serious mistake, telling Bloomberg that its initial evaluation according to which the customer service representatives were no longer necessary “did not adequately consider all the relevant commercial considerations and that this error meant that the roles were not redundant.”

“We apologized to the employees concerned and recognize that we should have been more deepened in our evaluation of the required roles,” a spokesman for the media told the media. The same spokesman said that the dismissed workers were offered several options, including continuing in their old posts. Gizmodo contacted CBA for more information.

FSU published a statement Thursday, sharing details on the situation. “The ABC announced last month that jobs would be redundant due to the introduction of a new” vocal bot “fed in AI, which, according to them, had resulted in a reduction in call volumes. The members told us that it was a pure and not and did not reflect the reality of what was going on in the direct bank,” wrote FSU. “The volumes of calls increased in fact and the ABC rushed to manage the situation by offering staff at overtime and by ordering team leaders to answer calls.”

“Making ABC cancels these job cuts is a massive victory – but the damage has already been caused for our 45 colleagues who had to bear the stress and the concern to face redundancy, some of which have been with the bank for decades and have suddenly faced the prospect of not paying their bills,” added the union.

Although the details of all this episode are not easily available, it certainly seems to be another example of a company that puts the cart in front of the horse with AI. In the end, AI is always experimental technology, and its results are affected. A very publicized MIT study recently said that 95% of AI pilot programs in companies have so far been failures. With figures like this, companies would be wise to keep the workforce high at the moment.