BBC 6分钟英语 呼叫中心，你在跟人工智能说话吗

6 min English from BBC learningenglish com.

Hello. This is six minute English from BBC Learning English.

I'm Phil and I'm Pepper. Have you ever phoned up a company and had your call held in a queue?

If you have, then, you ve

probably heard messages like this Hello.

Your call is important to us.

You are number in the queue.

If you'd like to continue to hold, press one.

If you'd like to return to the main menu, press zero.

How do you feel when your phone call is put on hold?

PHIL Oh, frustrated. Usually, although I do like it when there's a number saying how many people are in front of you, that's good.

Well, when your call is finally connected, it's usually a cool center worker.

You'll speak to a real live person who'll hopefully fix your problem.

But increasingly, this work is now done using artificial intelligence, or AI, and this is causing problems in countries like India and the Philippines, where cool center jobs make up are big parts of the economy.

In this program, we'll be asking who's really in charge at the call center?

Humans or ai as always will be learning some useful new vocabulary.

And remember, you can read along with the program and find the list of new words and phrases.

My visiting our website, bbc learning english dot com.

But now I have a question for you.

Phil Around the world, numbers of call center workers have grown rapidly in recent years.

If you're listening to this, maybe you're a call center worker yourself.

So approximately how many people work in call centers globally?

Fill Is it A 7 million? B 17 million or C 27 million?

Ooh, um. I think B 17 million.

Okay, well, you'll have to listen to the end to find out the answer.

Now, one worker worried about the impact of AI on jobs in the Philippines is Myling Babylona, president of the Call Center Workers Union, B-I-E-N.

Here, she tells BBC World Service Program Tech life, about some of the difficulties of her job, and why she fears for the future.

So And this person is quite already aggravated, and he keeps on yelling.

And that's the, you know, that's the difficult part, because the mental stress also, you know, you have to partify the client, and you have to make sure you're able to resolve the concern.

And then the difficult part on that conversation is that your being monitored by an AI.

I mean, eventually AI would replace us.

Um. It's going to displace workers in, you know, eventually in the near future.

Even as a matter of factor's been a and a study that says that about 300000 workers, or around 27% of workers, that's going to be displaced because of AI, and that's slowly happening.

Call Center work involves deeming with customers who phoned up to complain they're often angry, aggravated and yelling or shouting down the phone.

It's My Leans job to pacify them, to calm them down.

If that wasn't stressful enough, my Leans conversations are monitored by AI systems to see how well she fixes her client's problems.

You might think AI was built to support workers like Miline, but she fears AI will replace her in the near future, a phrase meaning very soon or within a short time.

Miline emphasizes her fears about being replaced by giving details about a study she read, which claim that 27% of workers will be displaced by AI.

She uses the phrase as a matter of fact to emphasize what she's saying and to give more detail as evidence to support it.

But my Lean thinks AI will never fully replace humans.

She says, AI lacks one important quality empathy.

Here she explains more to BBC World Services Tech Life.

Well, I don't think AI could is, you know, empathetic, or, uh, whenever they talk, I mean, if ever a machine or a robot talks to them, you know, um, people are more compassionate than, you know, when you talk to a rope.

Myline says the AI is not empathetic.

Unlike humans, it can't put itself in someone else's place and share their feelings or experiences.

If you listen carefully to miline's speech, you'll notice she says, you know, a lot phrases like, you know, um and R are called filler words, and are used to give the speaker time to think or to express uncertainty.

Right? I think it's time I revealed the answer to my question, phil.

I

asked you, how many Call Center workers are there globally?

And I said 17 million, which is the right answer.

Okay, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned in this program, starting with yelling, another word

for shouting to pacify someone means to calm them down when they're angry in the near future, means very soon or within a short time.

The phrase, as a matter of fact, is used to add emphasis to what you're saying, to give more detail about what you've just said, or to introduce something that contrasts with it.

If you're empathetic, you're able to put yourself in someone else's position and share their feelings or experiences.

And finally, filler words like, um ah, and, you know, give the speaker more time to find or to express uncertainty.

Once again, as 6 min are up, bye bye.

Six from BBC learning english dot com.

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