Opinion
One comedy show. Two seats. Not a big ask. But the days of simple transactions seem as numbered as those seats I’d spent an hour to secure. The problem was the chatbot, linked to the app that absorbed my data and credit card details, yet somehow failed to render the physical QR codes to manifest the seats.
Are you following this? The chatbot struggled. While I had confirmation of the sale via email, I lacked the evidence an usher would recognise. Hence, my chat with Google Dialogflow ™ built within the Ticketmaster app, a chatbot that “utilizes natural language processing to help users search for tickets and purchase them.”
Having opted out of future emails and amazing discount deals, I hunted in vain for the tickets I’d allegedly purchased (plus order processing fees). Hence, a query for Reymart, my service bot on the day, who suggested the items were on my account page within the app.
This entailed an access password of course, no fewer than eight characters, ironically excessive compared to Sammy J’s single-character show looming as the kerfuffle’s reward. Still, I reproduced my dog’s name with a haphazard capital and tail-end asterisk only to reach a barren accounts page.
The tickets aren’t here, I typed. Yes they are, said Reymart. No they’re not, and so on: man and machine locked into a playground cadence of irksome nostalgia. Long story short, I found my tickets via the icon on a baseline button bar that Reymart had neglected to explain, goading the final dudgeon of my inner curmudgeon:
“Bingo – I have found the tickets. There should be a simple direction toward – or an imposed alert upon – the relevant icon in the button bar. For a simple matter of getting tickets for a show, this has been a very poor and needlessly complicated experience with your service.”
It’s why I love op shops. Sure, there’s a bargain to be had, a good cause to serve, but the prime appeal sits in the sale’s honesty.
Reymart replied, “Thanks for chatting with us today. This conversation has now closed. Have a great day!” (Exclamation mark all “his”.)
Happily, Sammy J’s homage to Phantom comics was a great show, once the usher decoded our virtual tickets and pointed to our seats. Though for weeks I mused the phantom behind Google Dialogflow™ and its artificial cousins. As consumers, we are often locked into these false amities with chatbots, our to-and-fro reliant on what previous questions and responses have been digested by the software, as if every exchange is just a template of the one previous, as if one love song is the same as every love song.
The episode evoked a BlueSky fable, posted by a humourist under the handle of Better Things Are Possible: “Modern technology could learn from older stuff that does what it’s supposed to and doesn’t bother you. My toilet just works and never sends me emails like “Good news! Flush® is now Floosh®”
It’s why I love op shops. Sure, there’s a bargain to be had, a good cause to serve, but the prime appeal sits in the sale’s honesty. No word of birthdate or FlyBuys, no case-sensitive passwords or Everyday Rewards, no platinum firewall or loyalty card, no Floosh or Reymart, no QR codes. But rather a human encounter of natural language, a tangible moment of pleasantry without an exclamation mark in cooee.
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David Astle is the crossword compiler and Wordplay columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a broadcaster on ABC Radio Melbourne.
