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Something became obvious during the pandemic that served to undercut concerns about humans being displaced by artificial intelligence.

As health workers, retail staff and call-centre agents all over the world fell sick with the virus, we faced a massive customer-service crunch. There weren’t enough nurses to screen patients for Covid symptoms in hospitals or tax agents to help laid-off workers claim income-relief payments.

Website chatbots, computer programs designed to simulate text-based conversations with a human user, became the default way to engage with banks or airlines swamped with frustrated customers. But chatbots are