Of Wasps & Warblers
It seems as though every two weeks there is a new headline about artificial intelligence: a new breakthrough, a new application, a new concern. At first, it was easy to be dismissive—this technology is not alive. It does not think, it does not create, it merely puts together what is already there.
At a certain point however, AI became so effective at mimicking thought and creativity that this distinction no longer mattered in a practical sense. The philosophers can squabble over what defines thought and consciousness. So what? It doesn’t change what a large language model can do. The machine is trained on a huge amount of data - human data. The collective thought of mankind: aggregated, filtered, heaped into a massive pile of clay and molded into something recognizable, something almost human. It can write narratives, give directions, and share advice—all while adopting an incredibly convincing and conversational cadence.
The possibilities, it would seem, are endless. Tech entrepreneurs are singing their song, promising the moon, stuffing their vocabulary with whatever new buzzwords they need to appear like the smartest person in the room. Executives are giddy with anticipation as they imagine a new world, one where HR departments are obsolete and massive payroll budgets can be reinvested into the next billionaire space project.
I, too, am giddy with anticipation — I imagine a new world, one where those same executives have been replaced by the same language model that I use to generate funny pictures of cats.
All this to say, the first major adoption of this technology appears to be in customer service. A decades-long shameless off-shoring of these roles to the Philippines and India is now suddenly transitioning to AI chatbots and phone reps. This, I believe, is a crucial error; and if you are considering this as an executive or business owner, I would highly caution against it. In fact, I would go as far as to call this application of AI brand suicide. And that’s not just my opinion.
According to one study, “53% of customers would consider switching to a competitor if they found out a company was going to use AI for customer service” (Gartner). But why? What is driving this response? Is it merely a resistance to change?
I have a theory. Let’s talk about wasps & warblers.
Meet Hymenoptera Chrysididae. Chrysididae aren’t like the yellowjackets in your backyard - they are parasites. The lone Chrysid does not build its own colony. It does not create a nest, nor does it serve a queen. Like a thief in the night, the Chrysid infiltrates the nest of another wasp or bee species, descends upon the unhatched young, and lays its own litter among the host’s brood. Upon hatching, this alien larvae will either devour the host’s offspring or consume their food, leaving them to starve to death. This behavior has a name: kleptoparasitism. Klepto- from the Greek ‘kléptō’ meaning ‘to steal.’
The Chrysididae’s parasitism works on a wide variety of wasp and bee species—except one in particular. The Northern Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus), has developed a built-in defense against social parasites like the Chrysid. Paper Wasps can detect non-residents of their hive through behavioral cues and visual recognition especially via facial and abdominal patterns. If a non-resident like the Chrysid attempts to infiltrate, it is unable to mimic the complicated behavioral patterns of the Paper Wasp and match their physical appearance. When detected, Paper Wasps respond with deadly force: grappling, biting, and stinging the aggressor until the threat is eliminated.
This defensive in-group recognition doesn’t have a universal label as far as I’m aware, but I like to think of it as a form of social distinction or discrimination. An inherent ability to recognize an “other,” something not only “outside the tribe,” so-to-speak, but “outside the species.”
This type of behavior isn’t unique to the Paper Wasp. The Cuckoo Bird infamously lays its eggs in other birds nests, and the Reed Warbler, its common victim, has in turn adapted to begin rejecting foreign eggs from the nest when it sees them. (Side note: the Warbler and Cuckoo are particularly interesting to read up on, as they are locked in an evolutionary arms race to outmaneuver the other).
Like wasps, like warblers, humans rely on social, visual, and behavioral cues. When a consumer engages with artificial intelligence mimicking conversational warmth, a repulsion occurs. This isn’t indicative of a consumer finding the practice distasteful—this is the consumer finding it repulsive. Indeed, if you were to walk into any social setting and ask normal people about their opinions of AI, you’d likely hear the same anti-AI sentiment echoed ad nauseam.
I don’t believe this revulsion is Luddite in nature, I think it is downstream from a comparable psychological blueprint, something akin to the sixth sense that triggers upon realizing someone is feigning friendship in an attempt to sell you something or otherwise manipulate you. If you’ve ever met an actual sociopath or serial manipulator, you may understand the deep intuition I’m referring to. To the wasps & the warblers, parasitoids aren’t minor inconveniences -- they are an existential threat. They are the Trojan horse, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the Grendel in the Great Hall.
Consider first: every interaction a consumer has with an artificial intelligence cosplaying as a human is a stark reminder of the media chatter about how this very technology will take their jobs. In that sense, an AI customer service representative is just as much a kleptoparasite as the Chrysid or the Cuckoo.
Consider second: the goal of a customer service interaction isn’t just to book an appointment or ask a question—even if that is the rational basis for the interaction. By the time they’ve reached out, the customer has likely already done a good amount of self-service. They’ve been browsing FAQs, Googling, maybe even using AI themselves. What they’re really looking for, on some level, is something real, relatable, sincere—something emotional and human. When an artificial intelligence mimics human conversation, it lacks that genuine emotion and reciprocity.
And this emotional need underlines the real issue:
This isn’t only the era of A.I., this is the era of human loneliness.
The great irony of modernity is that there are more humans around than ever before, and yet they hardly see each other. The rise of social media offered a cheap surrogate for the decline of the church, of the neighborhood, of the workplace. Families are further apart. Empty libraries sit idle by empty parks. No amount of social media use truly fulfills that human craving for social interaction. No AI chatbot or “synthetic partner” will either.
Whether you realize it or not, we are currently experiencing a mass subconscious rebellion against technology, a return to genuine human interaction and the analogue. There are examples everywhere you look. From ‘digital detoxes’ to ‘dumb devices,’ from book clubs to board games, the trend is clear. The Catholic Church of all places has seen an explosion in young adult attendance.
At least where the technology is today, we can still delineate between an artificial intelligence and a real human, based on cues in the model's conversational style (such as over reliance on certain phrases and language patterns), as well as the fact that convincing audible AI speech still has a way to go. It’s reasonable to assume that at some point, it will be impossible to identify these cues. This means that if you are set on adopting this technology, you have two choices regarding its implementation:
- Implement now, while the illusion is imperfect, and suffer the consequences of alienating customers who can see through the facade.
- Implement later, when the illusion is perfect, and miss the big picture entirely.
I think it is important to recognize that a time of great need is also a time of great opportunity. You could be the rebel. You could be the company that has a warm human voice on the phone and a smiling face at the door, all while still being powered by the most advanced AI tech stack the world has ever seen (behind the scenes). You could make humanity part of your message, your goal, your brand.
Many consumer-facing businesses are going to miss the writing on the wall. They are going to over-implement AI, and they are going to fuel the ongoing social crisis. If you lose your human connection with the customer, you risk losing the relationship. Losing their loyalty. Losing their trust. Like a wasp with a metallic sheen, like an egg with a foreign hue, you will become the other.
The parasite in the nest.
P.S. I love second opinions, counterpoints, and feedback :)
I try to respond to every email & letter (yes, if you mail me a letter, I will write back. I’m a sucker for the analogue myself. I’m part of the rebellion against the digital age. Just don’t send me a carrier pigeon. I don’t know how they work and chances are your bird will end up lost in French Indochina, fraternizing with Eurasian tree sparrows over their mutual disdain for the bygone Maoist regime).
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