--- title: "Landlords Now Using AI to Harass You for Rent and Refuse to Fix Your Appliances" description: "Rather than talking to tenants themselves, property managers are favoring AI chatbots to handle day-to-day inquiries." date: "2024-06-30" modified: "2024-06-30" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/landlords-using-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "chatbots" - "landlords" - "the digest" --- # Landlords Now Using AI to Harass You for Rent and Refuse to Fix Your Appliances ![Rather than talking to tenants themselves, property managers are favoring AI chatbots to handle day-to-day inquiries.]() *A close-up shot of a mature man crouching down near his washing machine, he is calling an appliance repair service on his smartphone at his home in the North East of England. \Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Talk to the Hand Are you ready for an AI-automated future? Even if you're not, turns out you'll have no choice — because your landlords are diving straight in. It hasn't quite taken the real estate world by storm yet, but, as [*The New York Times* reports](), some property managers are using AI chatbots to handle the inquiries — and complaints — of their tenants, both existing and prospective. Like any good landlord, these bot-barons also do the dirty work of harassing you to pay your rent — and whether it does that in the usual chirpy AI tone or a stern voice, is up to the client. Such chatbots are provided by companies like EliseAI, based in New York, which serves the owners of some 2.5 million apartments across the US, according to the *NYT*. They're meant to be as humanlike as possible, CEO Minna Song told the newspaper — and are maybe a little too good at playing the part. "People come to the leasing office and ask for Elise by name," Song said. ## Customer Disservice Some tenants aren't thrilled about their new intermediary overlords. For Ray Weng, a software programmer, it's made apartment-hunting even more soul-crushing than it already is. In many cases, he was forced to speak to an AI about renting a place, which would give vague and even repeated answers. Showing up in-person was no better: even the tours were self-guided. "I'd rather deal with a person," Weng told the *NYT*. "It's a big commitment to sign a lease." He added that "if it's all automated, it feels like they don't care enough to have a real person talk to me." At the very least, these AIs are on call 24/7. Gone are the days of getting ghosted by your landlord when there's a problem that needs fixing. On the other hand, a tenant might feel a little insulted, as in one example about EliseAI's capabilities *NYT* cited, when a bubbly chatbot simply sends them a video about how to find the water shut-off valve after complaining about leaky plumbing. ## Full Disclaimer An AI chatbot in any customer service role raises a bunch of thorny questions. What if it confidently tells a tenant wrong information, or makes a promise its human masters can't make good on? We've already seen examples of how this could play out. Earlier this year, Air Canada was forced to pay damages to a man that bought a ticket after its AI [lied about the airline's bereavement policy]() by saying he would receive a refund. What's also murky territory is whether the chatbots should be required to declare that they're an AI upfront. EliseAI does not, as there's no laws forcing it to. Sounds a little sleazy, and some experts think that if landlords are going to salvage the little trust that tenants have in them, being honest in this area would probably be best. "All things considered, it is better to have your bot announce at the beginning that it is a computer assistant," Alex John London, a professor of ethics and computational technologies at Carnegie Mellon, told the *NYT*. **More on AI:** *[Wendy’s Says Its AI Only Screws Up 14 Percent of Drive-Through Orders]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()