The person at the original call center literally had no idea of the existence of the operation of the company at city C and it didn't have any sort of online presence. The online presence only knew about the operations at city A and B. Remember that C was the zombie part of a defunct company they bought so even the original contact details which might once have existed wouldn't work or be listed any more. The call center person I originally spoke to literally tried to google it while I was on the phone and got an incorrect contact number which I tried so I know it didn't work. The only correct contact details I could find were on the paper statement which was how I knew to write them an old fashioned letter (which was the thing which eventually seems to have worked). Noone at city A or B had this statement - I had it.
In any event we're in danger of fixating on my original example and missing the broader point which is that any system or intelligence, human or otherwise, is limited by the data it is able to access. If a company has a very messy and/or disfunctional data landscape[1] then it is difficult bordering on impossible to paper over the cracks with systems or operational processes.
[1] which I gave an intentionally extreme example of, but lots of companies are formed from multiple acquisitions or have systems built by rival IT groups in different parts of the org or by outside vendors or contractors etc so a milder form of this is very common in my experience.
fair point. or otherwise is as much as I was getting at. mail scanning services and text to speech gateways extend the reach of a hypothetical AGI. we don't need to wait for ARA (artificial robot actuation) for the skynetpocalypse to come. plenty of building blocks are already here.
In any event we're in danger of fixating on my original example and missing the broader point which is that any system or intelligence, human or otherwise, is limited by the data it is able to access. If a company has a very messy and/or disfunctional data landscape[1] then it is difficult bordering on impossible to paper over the cracks with systems or operational processes.
[1] which I gave an intentionally extreme example of, but lots of companies are formed from multiple acquisitions or have systems built by rival IT groups in different parts of the org or by outside vendors or contractors etc so a milder form of this is very common in my experience.