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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The unemployment rate for recent college graduates is 5.6%, nearly two percentage points higher than the general population. Many believe that artificial intelligence is taking over entry-level jobs.
UR juniors who started using OrbitPhone
Two University of Rochester juniors decided to fight back by starting their own AI company. Stephen Lim and Walter McDonald founded OrbitPhone, which started as an artificial intelligence receptionist.
“You’ll be able to continue the conversation with your customers and add events to their calendars,” McDonald said.
The system processes customer voices through a neural network that thinks about responses while people are speaking. “It only takes 200 milliseconds to finish,” McDonald said. “So from our perspective, it’s momentary between the time the customer finishes and the time we get a response.”
On the day News10NBC’s chief investigative reporter Berkeley Breen met them, they were interviewing college students looking to intern at the company. The company is now shifting its focus to car dealerships, developing an AI system to match customers with bank loans.
Practical application of AI
“They just showed up one day,” said Malcolm Massare of Five Star Auto in Greece.
Lim and McDonald coldly called the Mathare dealer. He signed a deal with Orbitphone to “essentially secure more approvals,” Mathare said. “By matching us with eligible banks using the customer data they enter.”
“Entering information takes at most five seconds,” Lim said.
Graduate unemployment rate is 5.6%
According to the New York Fed, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates is 5.6%. A quick Google search reveals that many college students are launching AI businesses in response.
Click here to view the Federal Reserve unemployment rate graph
“The job market is changing rapidly. It is very difficult to find a job as a software developer,” Mr Lim said. “One of the reasons we are pursuing this startup is to ensure we capture market share.”
McDonald’s offered advice to companies concerned about AI replacing workers. “We don’t have to agree to automate the entire workplace or lay off the entire workforce. I think that’s terrible. We shouldn’t do that,” McDonald said. “What you need to do is look at your business, identify one problem you have, and see if there is an AI solution there, because I promise there is.”
Walter and Stephen learned many of their skills during an internship they received through the Center of Excellence in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence based at the University of Rochester.
