Episode
Something Is Seriously Wrong With People?
- Published
- Jun 22, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 773
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Summary
A few days ago, my wife received a credit card in the mail from a company we had never used. Apparently, someone had opened an account in her name. Naturally, I assumed identity theft and immediately called the credit card company to shut the account down and find out what information had been used to create it. After spending twenty minutes navigating an infuriating AI phone system, I finally reached a human being. Or at least, I think I did. The conversation felt strange. Every question I asked seemed to trigger a predetermined response. Every attempt to move the conversation in a logical direction was met with another scripted answer. It was as if the representative was following a flowchart that he could not deviate from under any circumstances. At one point I caught myself wondering whether I was talking to another AI. I wasn’t. It was clearly a real person. Yet somehow the interaction felt less human than many conversations I have had with chatbots. That experience stuck with me because it wasn’t an isolated incident. Lately, I have noticed a growing number of interactions that feel strangely mechanical. Not just in customer service. Not just online. Everywhere. People seem more scripted. More performative. More constrained. Almost as if they are operating from a limited set of dialogue options. Like NPCs in a video game. Now before anyone gets offended, I am not saying everyone behaves this way. I meet plenty of thoughtful, authentic people. But I encounter this phenomenon often enough that I can no longer ignore it. And it leaves me wondering: What exactly happened? The Corporate Mask That Never Comes Off I first noticed this trend while working in tech. Anyone who has spent time in a large corporation understands that some degree of performance is expected. We…