New York Right to Repair Act Changes OEM Repair Landscape

New York is the first state in the nation to adopt a right to repair law, which will become effective in June 2023 and change the terms and conditions by which people and enterprises that own telecom equipment can repair it. The New York Digital Fair Repair Act (Assembly Bill A7006B) is expected to be signed by Governor Kathy Hochul shortly, and will become effective one year after she signs the bill. Other state legislatures are taking notice and are expected to act soon to achieve what many would consider the creation of real competition in the equipment service sector.

Click to read more ...

The Graceful and Ungraceful Evolution Away from POTS

The underlying communications technology doesn’t matter so long as it works as needed when needed.
As much as I hate to admit it, and despite the fact that I rely on and love my low-tech, old time hardwired copper lines (yes, I still have two in my house), POTS lines are going the way of the dodo bird. Although, contrary to what the fearmongers would have you believe, this transition is not happening all at once, but slow and often sloth-like pace. Is it likely that copper will totally disappear? No. But as technology evolves and existing infrastructure becomes difficult and costly to maintain, POTS offerings will be harder to come by and costlier to repair, forcing many to abandon it, despite its inherent strengths of power failure operation and accuracy of location information.

Click to read more ...

Reliance on AI for Decision Making

As I was getting prepared to teach a graduate class on Ethics in IT, I was reminded—again—about the incredible power and vulnerabilities of AI-based decision making. With more frequency than I’d like, I see the phrase “AI Ethics,” and am quickly reminded that AI, in and of itself, has no ethics. There is really no such thing as “AI Ethics.” In fact, AI is merely a process (or, more accurately a series of processes) that are used to guide decision making. However, the fact is that truly ethical use of AI applications and systems requires careful consideration of the inherent biases brought to those processes by those who create, market and deploy them. 

Click to read more ...

How to Deploy Contact Center AI Ethically, Responsibly

Are you using contact center AI to validate already established conclusions, or are you actually using it to analyze and improve the customer experience?
A long time ago, my first real post-college job was at a call center for a major bank. An automatic call distribution (ACD) assigned calls to a group of about 20 agents who handled credit card, auto loan, and mortgage information. Once a month, each agent would sit down with the manager and receive a ranking. Every month, the same rather dim-witted agent (let’s call her Agent #1) would finish first, while the agent who finished second was clearly smarter (let’s call her Agent #2) than everyone else in the room. But Agent #2, the smart one, always finished second. This was a mystery to us who cared, particularly as Agent #1 received bonuses and awards for her continued place at the top.

Click to read more ...

Ethical Considerations When Deploying AI Processes

You must consider the issues of bias and outcome validity — otherwise, practical vulnerabilities lurk in the deep.

One publication that makes its way almost daily into my inbox frequently uses the phrase “AI Ethics.” While my objection to this phrase may seem overly nitpicky, the fact is that while having no common sense, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in and of itself also has no ethics. The real issue is what I would label ethical use of AI applications and systems, a title that describes a completely different, real, useful, and even quantifiable tool. Reliance on AI to assist — or even drive — decision-making is becoming increasingly prevalent in decision-making involving analyzing of all but the smallest amounts of data.

Click to read more ...