I pine for the days of older chatbots and IVRs. They were stupid. But they were demonstrably, honestly stupid -- they did not make false claims that they could solve every problem and replace human beings. They drew from a set of most-common solutions and did not, usually, balk at transferring to a living person if the answer was insufficient.

It did not result in my getting phone calls from enraged customers who spent half an hour getting looped. Annoyed at the rise of cheap automation, sure. But not perked around like this.