collector

AI is replacing one of the most hated jobs in the world: the tailcoat collector

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Years ago, if you were walking down the street in Spain and saw a man dressed in a tailcoat and top hat following someone, it could only mean one thing: that someone was a defaulter. Although the Frac Collector is still activeToday, the usual thing if you have an unpaid bill is to be bombarded with calls and notifications. Well, the last thing is that those dreaded calls are not made by people, but by AI agents. The AI ​​wants you to pay your debts. In a report in Wired They tell the story of Ben (not his real name), who received a call from ‘Eve, an AI agent for the collection company Pro Collect. In a very kind way, he asked him to pay a debt. The problem is that Ben had already paid her months ago and no matter how much he asked, he couldn’t get Eve to put him through to a human agent, so he decided to troll her a little, after all he has a language model behind him. Ben told him that he felt like “a little guy” facing a debt that was like a giant that wanted to trample him. After a few minutes of fiddling, he was finally able to speak to a person, who confirmed that his debt was indeed settled. Automating defaulters. In the United States delinquency figures are skyrocketing and debt collection companies have more work than ever, so they are starting to turn to technology to automate the task. There are many startups that offer “call center without humans” services, such as the Mexican Altur, Domu or Moveo. This allows them to handle the volume of active cases. These AIs not only send text notifications to debtors, they also make calls and even adapt their tone depending on each case. Female voice and kindness. Most AI agents dedicated to debt collection have a female voice and name such as Eve, Emily or Taylor. Speaking to Wired, the CEO of one of these companies (FloatBoat) states that “female voices are more accepted.” Another thing they have in common is that they are designed to sound calm and show empathy, so that the debtor does not feel attacked. However, the tone is adjusted based on the transcripts of previous calls, so if a customer resists paying, the AI ​​agent shows a harsher tone. The collections industry. Given the rise in defaults, AI agents are sold as the perfect solution to multiply calls and notifications to defaulters at almost zero cost. According to data from the Kaplan agencyby 2034 the AI ​​debt collection market is expected to reach $15.9 billion, quadrupling productivity and cutting costs in half. However, it is not clear that these agents are more effective than a human in getting debts paid. According to Yale researcher James Choi, many people feel less obligated to pay if they talk to an AI than to a human. Even so, for collection agencies it makes up for the fact that a bot is somewhat less convincing than its ability to operate 24/7 and manage thousands of simultaneous conversations. Legal and ethical limits. Consumer advocates warn of risks with the use of this technology. An AI agent is capable of making hundreds of calls simultaneously, at any time, which can turn an already predatory sector into something even more aggressive. On the other hand there is the issue of privacy. We have already seen in Ben’s story that AI agents make mistakes, if the mistake ends up revealing information, it can be a serious problem because they handle sensitive financial data. Image | Monstera Production In Xataka | An experiment with AI agents began to treat them badly. So AI Agents Became Marxists

In 2011, a collector bought in Morocco a meteorite. It has turned out to be a direct test of thermal water on Mars

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A black stone that had fallen from the sky was discovered in the Sahara desert by a Saharawi group. Selling to the highest bidder, we have known for a long time that it comes from the Mars cortex, but they have had to spend more than 10 years for scientists to desert one of their best kept secrets. A meteorite called “Black Beauty”. Officially called Northwest Africa 7034, the 320 grams rock was found in 2011 in the Sahara desert, in Western Sahara, and later sold to an American collector in Morocco. Its composition is unique among known Martian meteorites. It contains very old and very young minerals glued to each other, but coincides with what was observed by NASA’s rovers on the surface of Mars, so it was part of the Martian cortex when it detached from the red planet. A time capsule. A Recent study It focuses on a zircon grain found in the meteorite. This zircon has no less than 4,450 million years, which places it in the earliest stages of Martian history. The majority of known meteorites that come from Mars are from later geological periods, so NWA 7034 provides invaluable information on what the surface environment of the red planet was long before becoming what it is today. The meteorite that contains the most water. What makes Black Beauty exceptional is that it houses 10 times more water than other Martian meteorites. It was known that by the interaction of the rock with the water present in the crust of the planet at the time of its formation, but the recent analysis of the zircon with modern microscopy techniques has revealed much more information. The fragment contains iron, aluminum and sodium, unusual elements for a zircon of purely magmatic origin. But it is above all the presence of tiny inclusions of magnetite (iron oxide) that suggests that it crystallized under hydrothermal conditions. That is, in the presence of water at high temperature, and in an oxidizing environment. Ancient hot springs. The magnetite is trapped in zones of the zirch that are not altered by radiation, which indicates that they were formed at the same time as the zirch, and not as a result of subsequent secondary processes, the researchers explain. What the study comes to say is that 4,450 million years ago, during what is known as the pre-ondic period of Mars, there were already hydrothermal conditions in the Martian cortex. The Black Beauty meteorite is a direct proof that Mars had water in its formation stages. Favorable conditions for life. The finding reinforces the hypothesis that Mars had from very early the necessary conditions to house life, or at least some environments suitable for microbial life. That there was life on Mars or that it arrived on earth through a meteorite is still two hypotheses for which we have no evidence. However, that a meteorite of 2011 has given us so much information and reasons to continue investigating demonstrates how important the Martian samples can be that NASA and China want to bring in the coming years. Images | New Mexico University, NASA

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