Given how often this scenario has played out over the years, is it any wonder that sometimes, when I need customer "service," I'm willing to give chat a whirl. (Sometimes via Twitter; sometimes directly.) Even when I know that the first line of defense in chat is likely to be a bot that'll direct me to the "knowledge base" I've already exhausted.
Once I get over the chatbot hurdle and get to actually start texting with an honest-to-goodness human person type, I've found that chat support tends to be pretty good. But those bots? I don't know if I've ever gotten anything useful out of them.
Fortunately, I never expect to. And, fortunately, I've never actually had to communicate with a chatbot about the whereabouts of a dead body.
Equally fortunately, the bot encounter where that was the situation wasn't with the family of the person who was remaindered, but with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which was trying to help a family in distress.
Here's what happened.
Three years ago, in June 2019, Atlantan Jeffrey Merriweather, 32, was last seen riding in an SUV when gunfire was heard. Ten days later, his remains were found, the body already nearly "skeletonized" - extraordinary in itself after such a short time. Anyway, the body - what was left of it - was brought to the Fulton County Georgia medical examiner's office so that they could sort out the cause of death. (The belief is that Merriweather was shot.) Since the Fulton Co. pathologists were unable to make a determination, and were trying to figure out why the Merriweather's body was so skeletonized, they arranged to ship it to a lab in Saint Louis that has greater expertise in handling partial remains.
Although they're in Atlanta - HQ of UPS - the medical examiner's office decided to use FedEx for the shipment.
The package never got there.
When I think about it, I'm always amazed by how few packages - USPS, UPS, FedEx - do get lost. Given tracking and logistics technology, most things do arrive at the right place, generally at the right time.
I once had a pair of sneakers from Amazon/Zappo's show up a year late, after they'd already been replaced.
But mostly things get there.
So it's surprising that this package didn't. And it's pretty ghastly, considering what the shipment contained. A pair of Asics is one thing; a human body, quite another.
Anyway, the Journal-Constitution has been looking into the case, and they put out a tweet about their investigation, mentioning FedEx.
"Pending delivery?" Twitter was, not surprisingly, quick - and ruthless - to respond:...FedEx was swift to respond. But instead of getting answers, the newspaper and those following the case got an impersonal response from what appeared to be a Twitter bot, an automated account that publishes lots of content.
“Hello there. My name is Gaby,” FedEx Help, the company’s customer service account, replied in a tweet that has since been deleted. “This is not the experience we want to provide. I am very sorry for the pending delivery. Please send a direct message, I would be happy to assist.” (Source: Washington Post)
“This entire thread is a tour de force in the absolute uselessness of using AI instead of employing people to deal with customers,” one critic wrote. Jennifer Brett, a senior editor at the Journal-Constitution, agreed: “AI is not always the answer.”
Couldn't agree more. Those chatbots like "Gaby" manage time and again to flunk the Turing Test. When we're "chatting" with a chatbot, we definitely know we're not communicating with anyone real.
After the requisite mealy-mouthed "concerns," FedEx is focusing most of its energy on pointing out that the remains shouldn't have been sent via FedEx to begin with.“Our thoughts and concerns remain with the family of Mr. Merriweather, however, we request that further questions be directed to the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office,” the statement read. “Shipments of this nature are prohibited within the FedEx network.”
Meanwhile, it turns out that the FedEx facility in Austell, Georgia - the last location where Jeffrey Merriweather's remains were tracked - is considered something of a blackhole, a Bermuda Triangle where packages routinely perform disappearing acts.
Meanwhile, meanwhile, the Merriweather family is left wondering if and when they'll be able to bury their loved one.
"It’s a nightmare you can’t wake up from,” Kathleen Merriweather, Jeffrey’s mother, told the Journal-Constitution of the situation.
That poor woman.
AI is perpetually learning, getting smarter and smarter as time goes on. Maybe someday the bots will smarten up enough to recognize that some things really do call for a human (and humane) touch.
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