Impersonally Yours?

One of my most overused phrases
is with regard to advice on phones
-when talking informally to friends
who I feel free to ask suggestions
from as to who might advise me further,
because we have both been there, I ask
'Do you think there be a live human being
at the other end of the line?'.

There is a quite serious point
behind my question, though.
Some telephonists that I have
encountered were so controlled
by the caller-handling script
dictated to them on the screen
in front of them, a screen I can't see
-but from the way they give out 
so little information with so little care
I can tell that the script is guiding them.

They are not 'live' in any accepted use
of the word-they have no autonomy.

Another point hides in plain sight
behind my much overused sarcasm
-how much does automation make
personal service seem impersonal?
How much does automation devalue
the very idea of service to others
by making what one person does for another
'One more action, among too many to value'?