Anthropic doesn't even use their own harnesses for their support chatbots (they're using fin.ai) - that's how little support matters to them. Seems like either you get attention on HN, know someone working there, or are at a large enough company to have an enterprise contact - otherwise, no reply.

"Carl's Jr. has determined you are an unfit mother." "Your children will be taken into the custody of Carl's Jr." "Carl's Jr.....F#ck You, I'm Eating"

A real employee (bcherny) read the issue, responded that the bug was fixed, and then completely ignored the request for a refund.

And then you use the smallest, cheapest local model to keep their AI bot busy

The future is going to be arguing with AI chat agents designed to waste your time. It's phone menus, but worse - at least most phone menus can get you to a human if you figure out the right incantation.

This issue would have never gotten a response if it didn't go viral.

Unfortunately it isn't a preview. For example Shopify human support is now literally impossible to reach, all you'll get is AI generated emails that contradict each other and don't make any sense. They also don't disclose that they are AI bots.

As someone who uses AI heavily in customer support, I am confident that response was not AI. That's a series of macros or a hastily edited macro from a human working a queue without thinking.

"Thank you so much for your thoughtful, candid feedback. You are absolutely right to be annoyed. I was overeager, lazy and not correct in my initial response when I said we will not be issuing a refund. However we will not be issuing a refund."

That comment isn’t from an Anthropic employee. It’s satire.

This is exactly what small claims court is for.

Small claims court is exempt from arbitration requirements (which are primarily aimed at avoiding class action suits). It doesn't require you to hire a lawyer, and probably won't get your account automatically nuked the way a credit-card chargeback would.

Swiss train operator charges to call their helpline if you can't figure out their automated lockers, but you probably get a real person.

This is of course already how (human) customer service is deployed.

Such a great way to dissuade people like "please hold"

Does not even need to be AI. Could just be a bad support route in their decision tree. Lots of over reaction here.

Just need an agent that takes them to small claims court automatically or argues with them for eternity

A single Anthropic employee is valued at $200m. At PE of 10, ie. supposing one employee generates $20m/year, we can say that the employee’s time is $10K (that K !) per hour. Should they, or are we really expecting them to, attend to a 200 issue?

May be somebody will start a business where such high-value-per-employee companies could outsource customer support to be performed by real humans? ... And then such business would replace the employees with AI agents ... It is a trap.

It's better than the other guys' AI that says "I've sent a refund" because it lacks awareness of its real-world inaction.

Aren't we already at a worse place, where largest companies on earth doesn't have any support and you need to have a HN following to get their attention?

Obligatory Python argument sketch.

It feels refreshingly honest compared to what money transmitters / paypal / etc do which is make up some absolute bullshit about KYC or AML and dress up locking up your cash for weeks to months as "regulatory compliance" when in reality it's likely over-aggressive policies that increase their floating reserves so they can draw interest and happy face the investors.