"Intelligent" Avatars Poised To Manage Airline Check-In 102
An anonymous reader writes One of the developers behind special effects used in the film Avatar has inked a deal with airline check-in kiosk manufacturer BCS to implement avatars for personalized and interactive customer service. Dr Mark Sagar's Limbic IO is applying 'neurobehavioral animation' combining biologically based models of faces and neural systems to create live, naturally intelligent, and expressive interactive systems. "One of the comments levelled at self-service check in is that it has lost the human touch that people had when checking in at a traditional manned counter," Patrick Teo, BCS CEO says. "Travelling can be stressful and our aim is to make the interaction between human (passenger) and computer (check-in) as natural and helpful as possible."
nice job (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:nice job (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the OPs point was that the waits for check in and security are such that the miracle that is manned flight has been wasted upon us. Rather that if we are going to spend money (and yes any cost comes from tickets, so it's a collective we that will pay for this) perhaps there are other parts of the airport experience that would deliver a better return.
Frankly when I have been able to use automated check in, the existing terminals have been pretty clear and efficient. They're certainly not the most stressful part of the flying experience.
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Re:nice job (Score:5, Interesting)
One, expectations tend to grow as fast, sometimes faster, than capabilities. Unless you are traveling without any connecting flights and on a very leisurely schedule, everyone's assumptions about where you'll be and when will be calibrated to 'your flight; but on time', so delays that would have faded into the noise historically will now throw you off.
Perhaps more fundamentally it appears to be the powerlessness rather than the absolute time that stresses people out, and being at the mercy of complex systems run by other people is beautifully designed to rub your face in powerlessness. Technology has, of course, increased our absolute level of power by chiseling away at the domain of 'nope, go try placating the spirits or something'; but all those places where it used to be that nobody had any control, now somebody; but not you, has control and you can't quite shake the impression that they are jerking you around.
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You clearly have not been through some of the airports that I have. It's not the wait; it's the incredibly rude and arrogant staff. I've been yelled at by someone with a bullhorn, had my passport thrown at me, been told to "step aside" when my flight was cancelled and I need to reroute.... I could go on and on.
A nice avatar isn't going to help any of that, unless it means getting rid of the worst offenders that I've run into.
Some airlines (not all, but certainly some) could take that money and use it to
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This "intelligent avatar" thing, however, is probably going to be the worst of both worlds: the slowness of human interaction (waiting for an artificially generated face to actually speak out the words instead of just skimming the text on the screen in a fraction of the time) combined with a complete lack of common sense. And of course the avatar is going to speak as slowly as possible to make sure even the most retarded passenger can understand it, etc...
I really hope they'll at least include a start scree
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Clippy check-in:
I see you have some bags. Would you like to hear about our wonderful in flight services?
Re:nice job (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are dealing with a routine matter, you aren't really trying to convey that much data (and none of the data you are trying to convey are subtly emotionally nuanced or anything, it's basically an "I want to be on this flight, ideally in this seat, here's the billing info" operation, not a sonnet) and existing text and graphic based interfaces, while often questionably thought out, are at least as competent as a natural-language dialog for anyone who isn't illiterate or otherwise handicapped.
If something or someone is fucked up and/or deeply confused, the computer won't be able to help you because it will just format and present the garbage you are trying to sort out. You need someone who can understand an edge case or error and has the power to give a good hard shove to whatever fields aren't cooperating.
I'd bet nontrivial money that the effect of this 'advance' will be to make the experience worse: The licensing fees will be calibrated to be lower than human salaries; but the underlying system will still be far dumber and less flexible than the humans who it will replace (because why do we need so many desk staff now that our kiosks are so user friendly!?); so users whose problems were already solved will have, at best, a slightly more pleasant interaction, and the users with real problems will have to wait in a longer line for a more harried human to fix it.
We all know how totally peachy-keen 'interactive voice recognition' systems have made interacting with call centers, and this is basically the same old shit with an animated face.
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Or, in programmer terms: who here would spend his time trying to optimize code that takes 5% of the processing time instead of working on the other 95%?
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Kind of like advertising that seems silly. I see an ad for coke and I think "That's stupid, I'm not going to order a coke simply because I saw a pretty woman on a billboard drinking a coke." Yet I'm told it does actually have an effect without you realizing it. People aren't completely rational.
Of course, I'm not confident this guy or
There's something touching about that comment (Score:5, Insightful)
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the solution of hiring more people will, of course, not be considered.
Nor should it be. The number of people that really care about a check-in terminal having a "human touch" is probably about 2%. The number willing to pay extra to have their ticket issued by a human is likely closer to 0%. Any airline hiring extra humans to deal with this will just lose business to their lower cost competitors.
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Right.
It's profit-driven androids, all the way down.
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Anyways, if you're late or there is some complication... Humans are nice...
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the solution of hiring more people will, of course, not be considered.
Nor should it be. The number of people that really care about a check-in terminal having a "human touch" is probably about 2%. The number willing to pay extra to have their ticket issued by a human is likely closer to 0%. Any airline hiring extra humans to deal with this will just lose business to their lower cost competitors.
Ultimately this.
A lot of the stress at the airport is self inflicted because people don't want to pay for things. They don't want to pay baggage so they lug an oversized case everywhere. In the US it has been a race to the bottom and it's been so bad that you don't have any airlines left that an Australian, Asian or European would consider to be "full service".
Let me be clear that I certainly don't blame individuals for the TSA cluster fuck, but beyond that it's down to cheap people being too cheap fo
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It's not the human *touch* that people crave in a complicated interaction with a system. It's human *versatility*.
Thus more personnel does no good, if those personnel are rigidly controlled, lack information to advise or authority to act. The fact that they're also expected to be jolly and upbeat as they follow their rigid and unyielding rules only turns the interaction with them into a travesty of a social interaction.
What would work better is a well-designed check-in system that handles routine situation
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In other words, except for the douche, good customer service.
I fly a regular route with American from a small airport; if I get the usual counter staff I don't get charged luggage fee. Giving up $25 to make a guy who drops $2k - $10K on airfare every month moderately happy is probably not a bad idea. (And no, I have not reached the exalted flyer status, as my flying is spread over many airlines.)
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But you will get all the claims that minimum wage laws, labour laws, inflation (money printing) and basically rising prices somehow increase economic activity rather than putting more pressure on business to automate (use capital where labour was used initially).
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That's because consumers do not want to pay for more people just so they can have 'human touch' during check-in. In fact, I personally actively avoid talking to humans for processes that can easily be performed by myself. Why do I need a person who may or may not have a high school diploma click some buttons that I can click myself? Only about 5% of cases require a human to deal with an exception to the basic check-in process, which means you only need 5% of the staff.
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"Hi sir, you just checked into your flight, which is totally fun, would you like to continue the thrill by standing around for a few minutes longer and taking a survey about your experience? Yes? GREAT! If you could stop drooling for a minute, tell us how we can improve your experience? You like to look at human faces? Oh, you said 'feces'? I'll just write down faces, how about that?"
Well, it could be worse,. . . (Score:2)
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I mean, at least they didn't ink a deal with the guys in charge of the Fifth Element. We would all be required to carry a MULTI-PASS!
That's "Mul-Ti-Pass" and, yes, they know it's a Multipass.
[ One of my favorite movies BTW. Anyone know if it's a significantly better experience on Bluray than on DVD (or even Superbit DVD)? ]
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that." (Score:1)
That human touch we know and love so well.
Personally I'd buy stock in AI kiosk screen repair servicing companies.
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Can we replace (Score:1)
the meat sacks in the TSA with these things?
Sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
"One of the comments levelled at self-service check in is that it has lost the human touch that people had when checking in at a traditional manned counter,"
So we're going to take away the last humans and replace them with mindless robots.
Well done.
Certainly aced that one.
(As an aside, I've just come through London Stansted including an extra hour in the security queues which went all the way back to the gate when you come off the plane, and I spent much of it yelling and attracting the attention of people around me - my primary beef was that the humans had no humanity, nobody had bothered to go down the line, tell us what we were waiting for, how long it was expected to take, what they could do for special cases - young children, disabled passengers, elderly passengers unable to stand in queue, etc. - or would even bother to do anything to help or give answers.
And when we got to the front, all the "electronic passport" aisles were gone and only the manned aisles were left. I know why they were removed - nobody uses them. They are too much a faff, you can't take children through them, if you're travelling with someone with a non-chipped passport, you have to separate and then wait (hope) blindly for each other on the other side, etc. so even when they were opened, less than 1% of the people there ever used them.
Sorry, if you want the human touch, you have to put humans in there AND then listen to the humans queuing alongside them AND then let those humans sort each other's problems out. Reliance on machines? When I got to the long-stay car park to retrieve my car, it wouldn't let my (immaculately preserved) ticket through two different barriers, so I had to press the button and get someone to let me out, costing me another 10 minutes. Thank god that wasn't my passport at the end of a hour-long queue.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
"One of the comments levelled at self-service check in is that it has lost the human touch that people had when checking in at a traditional manned counter,"
So we're going to take away the last humans and replace them with mindless robots.
It's a self-service check-in, it's already a mindless robot.
Though I fail to see how replacing the dumb kiosk with a more intelligent avatar will really make anything better, I don't really want the kiosk to ask me how my day is going, or tell me I better bundle up because it's going to be a cold day in Chicago, I just want to check in as quickly and easily as possible.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a self-service check-in, it's already a mindless robot.
Though I fail to see how replacing the dumb kiosk with a more intelligent avatar will really make anything better, I don't really want the kiosk to ask me how my day is going, or tell me I better bundle up because it's going to be a cold day in Chicago, I just want to check in as quickly and easily as possible.
This.
Using some supposedly intelligent avatar instead of a clear, simple, and well designed UI ranks right up there with the automated call interfaces that ask you to speak your answers instead of pressing the number buttons on your phone. People complained because pushing numbers sucked; RCA was incorrect; we ended up with a system 10x's as frustrating that takes 3x's longer to operate.
I've found the self-service check-in's to be rather good, but the physical integration of them has left a lot to be desired. IE. there is no line for them.. there's just a bunch of them scattered about. Then you still have to take your bags somewhere, and figuring out where that line is, and how it differs from the line that includes getting your ticket, is often a complete mess. You often have to wade back through all the folks wandering around the kiosks to find the front of the new line. It should be a LOT simpler and organized much better... though I'm sure this is a per-airport, and possibly per-airline, issue, so YMMV.
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That sums up my impression of the state of airports that have adopted the machines wholesale. The machines are just scattered around, and there is no clear "line" to either check your bags or speak to a human. You just need to trace the ropes to find a gap, and hope that the line you started is the place where the lone counter person is looking for the next person to serve. If it's especially busy, there may be two people at the counter, but anyone else on staff will be wandering around to help people with
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This times a thousand.
Good UI: Discreetly push buttons on phone, zero chance of a DTMF tone being misinterpreted.
Bad UX: Te
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Sigh all you want. If people like you were willing to pay extra for the human touch, then there would be two tiers of tickets offered by airlines: self-checkin and human check-in. Human check-in would of course be an extra $100 or so. Still interested?
To underscore this even more, every airline I know (US) has a choice between kiosk and human. The human check-in has no incremental monetary cost. You just have to wait in a significant line. Very few people choose to pay this tiny cost just to have a person c
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I'm becoming less and less of a fan of the "buggy whip" example. Mainly because we currently feel it's so easy and simple to point and laugh at those archaic, buggy whip makers.
The concept changes drastically when you realize how much of the middle class has/will be gutted by automation, and now it's not just buggy whip guys losing their job, it's YOU. In the position you thought was too intelligent and necessary, you're suddenly automated out of existence and somebody else is making jokes about whatever it
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It's well-known representative example and is not meant to be the best example.
Your premise is pretty egocentric, though. We are living through a relatively quiet period with new innovation, compared to the industrial revolution and the 1990s. If the social order didn't collapse then, I'm pretty sure we'll be fine.
But if you want to slow down even more the automation of jobs currently filled with humans, then stop adding to the price of employing humans while the price of buying automation falls. That means
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Your scenario is no possible. What happens is that there will be a sub-optimal balance between automation and jobs, and the cause of this will be idiot voters using government for things that does not make sense.
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Society needs to figure it out, but that doesn't mean halting progress, it doesn't mean returning to a subsistence lifestyle and it doesn't meant that the middle classes are some important protected group that we dare not touch.
Fuck 'em, adapt or die.
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Sigh all you want. If people like you were willing to pay extra for the human touch, then there would be two tiers of tickets offered by airlines: self-checkin and human check-in. Human check-in would of course be an extra $100 or so. Still interested?
Yes, it's called 'Business Class'. I walk straight up to the checkin counter, hand over my bags, and they do the rest, so I don't have to worry about what passport I'm supposed to use this time, or whatever other nonsense has changed since I last flew.
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Oh, right. I forgot that the main reason people buy biz class tickets is so they can check in with a human and not have a line.
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And when we got to the front, all the "electronic passport" aisles were gone and only the manned aisles were left. I know why they were removed - nobody uses them. They are too much a faff,
I use the electronic "smart gates" in Australia all the time, I've never had an issue with them. They get used a lot but there's never a long like at them because they're faster than a manned counter.
My biggest fear is another overzealous customs officer in another country doesn't do what one Malaysian one did and stamp the centre page that has the chip in it and the words "Do Not Stamp This Page" in bold lettering on it. Getting another passport is a bitch.
uncanny valley (Score:2)
I suppose he's never heard of the uncanny valley affect. This sounds like a great way to RAISE stress, not lower it.
The human touch (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks to a prosthetic knee, I get the "human touch" every time I fly. That's after a trip through the pornscanner and taking out all of my electronics and startingt them up, of course.
As for the kiosks -- if you know what you're doing, the last thing that you need is the kind of condescending "help" that gets in the way of getting your freaking boarding pass.
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> if you know what you're doing, the last thing that you need is the kind of condescending "help" that gets in the way of getting your freaking boarding pass.
Bingo! People have the choice to check in with a human now. They use the kiosk. Why do I need someone to press a couple buttons for me?
Help Wanted (Score:1)
Humans need not apply.
SOlution looking for a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
If the problems above solved, I would gladly register using CLI, if necessary.
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Vote with your feet and if necessary your wallet.
I always fly with JAL now because their economy class gives you 10cm extra leg room. It doesn't sound like much but it makes a massive difference. They have plenty of staff to do check-in and let you take an extra hold bag over what most of the competition offer. They charge the same or only slightly more (£20-30 on a flight costing £850).
Don't put up with shitty service for the sake of a few bucks or shopping around.
A welcome innovation (Score:2)
create live, naturally intelligent, and expressive interactive systems
That'll be a first!
AI just isn't up to it yet, (Score:4, Insightful)
Artificial intelligence is nowhere near good enough to translate "I want an isle seat for my son and TIMMY STOP POKING YOUR SISTER, sorry, An isle seat for my son and I have a Delta flight from Dallas, can you make sure it will arrive in time to connect?" That's the kind of thing human attendants can cope with easily. The best kind of interface for ticketing is an unintelligent wizard on a touch screen with big icons and a "help" button for an attendant.
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They did. It was the Concorde. Fast, uncomfortable, loug and expensive.
lost the human touch? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The self check in terminals are fine, but fat lot of good it does when i still have to stand in a huge line just to have the human behind the desk put a sticker on my checked baggage. WTF is that about? ... Why can't the terminal simply spit out my baggage sticker for myself to put on?
It may be about putting the sticker on correctly. If the sticker isn't put on correctly (positioned so automated scanners can read the bar codes and securely attached so it won't fall off), the bag may not make it to the destination in a timely fashion. Granted that putting on the sticker isn't hard, but some people have difficulty with seeming simple things. In addition, having an airline employee attach the sticker before the luggage is accepted allows for a human check to ensure things like: the bag is w
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Why can't the terminal simply spit out my baggage sticker for myself to put on?
It may be about putting the sticker on correctly. [...] allows for a human check to ensure things like: the bag is within dimensional limits, the bag isn't already damaged, [...]
Most (if not all) airports in Norway have had the machines print out luggage tags for you to put on yourself for years now. Some have self-service bag-drops where you scan the luggage tag (and iirc fingerprint) and be on your way. I'm sure the machine would refuse overweight luggage, and there is usually a person nearby keeping an eye on everything.
Of course, if traveling to the US (and probably a number of other destinations as well), you're required to interact with a manned counter at some point.
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That's why the removed the automated baggage drop of counters again from the largest airport over here.
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Flew from Gatwick to Tromsà with Norweigian in December. It was fantastic! Self check-in machine printed off a sticker for my luggage. Placed it in an automated bag drop, and the only queueing I had to do was at the security theatre.
KLM has something similar. BA at Heathrow still has manned desks but the kiosks print out the sticker so it is just a case of
Do not want (Score:2)
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Flight to Uncanny Valley departing from terminal 1 (Score:3)
I think that going through tree of discrete selections has a better solution in touchscreen than in glorified answer-phone system with space-wasting avatar visualisation.
Maybe they could prototype it first by putting terminals videoconferencing to live people which could not fully understand what you are telling them (certain offshore locations come into mind) and see how much it improves the passenger checkin quality. If it works perfectly, THEN they can solve problem of video lines by generating almost-human computer avatars. I have a feeling that people will prefer impersonal selections to videoconference...
Recent experience (Score:3)
Clippy for checkin terminals? (Score:4, Insightful)
So is this basically clippy for checkin terminals?
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I'm looking forward to Genuine People Personalities, particularly Marvin.
multipass (Score:1)
what's the min wage of an avatar? (Score:2)
Please explain technologies like this to these clowns: http://politics.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
TYFSOK (Score:3)
"Travelling can be stressful and our aim is to make the interaction between human (passenger) and computer (check-in) as natural and helpful as possible."
Remember those stickers on the registers at K-Mart, facing the cashier, with the letters, "TYFSOK"? It stands for, "Thank You For Shopping Our K-Mart." The sticker was to remind the beleagured minimum wage employee to recite the words. Did anyone, ever, feel that the person mechanically parroting that catch phrase actually cared? How about the greeters at Wal Mart? (I think they've pretty much gone away, like the TYFSOK stickers)
You can teach an automaton to mimick human emotion, but even when it is an actual human such mimickry is patronizing and irritating. If you want human warmth, hire warm humans (downside; warm humans who can keep their positive mental attitude while working at an airport are expensive and they need time to recover from their shifts).
If you are going to use computers, embrace their natural advantages. Computers are fast, predictable, and emotionless. Those can be good characteristics in a user interface -- particularly when the customer just wants to get the process finished and move on. Work with the entire industry to develop a standard interface and sequence so the user and bang through it without even engaging their brain -- everyone is better off with travellers on autopilot. Painting a computer in whore's makeup won't make it a lover for any but the most desperate.
And, for you air travellers, a quick question: Why are you still endorsing them? Why are you still agreeing to be subjected to the TSA and the awful customer service of the airlines? Have you really made all reasonable efforts to switch to alternatives? If you aren't making significant personal sacrifices to cut their cashflow, you are lending aid and comfort to the enemy. I've driven 6,000 miles in the past year avoiding air travel. What are you doing?
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When travelling from the UK to Chile... Flying is pretty much the only sensible option for me right now.
I pretty much hate the entire experience but there are not better alternatives for when you NEED to travel to some places.
When travelling in and around the UK I would never fly if I can avoid it as the entire experience has become pretty inconvenient.
Excellent -- it sounds like you are making all reasonable efforts to cut their cashflow.
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I'm one of those people who actually find air travel convenient. The annoyances of check-in and the TSA (I always opt out of the scan) and having your partner have to drive you to the airport really pale in comparison to the huge amount of time and energy saved compared to driving. I can even sleep on an airplane and read in line at the gate. Road trips are fun if you're travelling in company, but if you're travelling alone, flying is so much more convenient.
First - why do we need checkin (Score:2)
I check in online. When I get to the airport, why can't I just swipe my passport drop my bags on the conveyor and go on my way. Sometimes that works, but at least half the time while someone types the Oxford English Dictionary into a keyboard. I'm not changing flights. I'm doing exactly what my reservation, and online checkin said I was doing.
I don't want a human touch, I just want to get on my airplane.
On the occasions where I am doing something unusual, or where something goes wrong, an AI avatar is NO
Creepy (Score:2)
Expect human reaction to computers pretending to be human to be angry and creped out.
When you do this you are essentially selling a lie to the customer even though it is clear machine is a machine and not a person the emulation of a person is still perceived as deception and therefore offensive.
If airlines feel compelled to waste their money on something other than reasonably usable kiosk terminals why not invest it to reverse multi-decades trend of making experience of flying as lame, oppressive and uncomf
no thanks (Score:3)
I don't fly anymore, because I don't enjoy voluntary root canals, but ...
I went through an automated car wash recently, and instead of pushing a few buttons and swiping my card, I got to listen to a video of a cheerful smiling woman in a car (with her adorable "daughter" beside her!) explaining each step in painful marketese ... every time I did anything, she started over, talking (obliquely, tediously) about the new step I was on ... by the time I could actually drive into the car wash I was ready to rip out the screen and beat myself over the head with it.
If you are going to automate, then at least make it quick and efficient. If you want the human touch, use actual humans. (Well, just not that actual human, please.)
Human touch? (Score:3)
Check in kiosks are fine the way they are. If you want a human touch, just wait for the TSA security line. Of course, it will involve a Latex glove.
Really? (Score:2)
Just when you think that customer service can't possibly get any more creepy, then you read this.
Personally, I *HATE* those things. (Score:2)
I don't mind dealing with computers. I don't mind dealing with people. I hate dealing with computers that pretend to be people. "Wait a minute while I look that up for you." (pretend typing noise) NOOOOOO thanks. If people want a more human experience, they're saying they want actual humans, not computers that pretend to be humans.
We had that before (Score:2)
That's exactly the same line of thinking that was (obviously!) ready to be spoofed decases ago!
Adding a "human touch" to something that should be easy as opening a door or using an elevator was what led the Sirius Cybernetics cooperation to develop Genuine people personalities.
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Thank you. You are cleared through Voice Print Identification.
Business Speak Lessin (Score:2)
Translation, "AIML is less than Minimum Wage."
Good work (Score:2)
Translate that work being done on "intelligent" avatars into the real world and we'll get more "intelligent" RealDolls(tm). Fuck yeah!
Intelligent? Damn marketers! (Score:2)
Can we please set some sort of standard for the vocabulary of artificial intelligence? Because I'm fairly certain that kiosk manufacturers "BCS" has not created a networked artificial intelligence just to help you decide if you want to upgrade to more leg room.
It's a set of video recordings set to play in response to input stimuli and complete actions in the background and nothing more. It's "smart".
I propose:
Intelligent -- Smart and Sentient.
Sentient -- For others to describe/debate.
Smart -- Capable of mak