re: #280 Political Atheist

Getting better fast right? And maybe good enough to fake out the elderly in a scam. At some point sooner rather than later I’d like to see a regulation for disclosure of an automated conversation.

That’s rather the point of this sort of thing. It’s dishonest at the core. Again, people who are familiar with human conversation and of moderate intelligence can spot these sorts of bots easy. We know that humans simply don’t repeat a phrase the exact same way with the exact same inflection. We know when a question is being improperly answered, because the machine doesn’t have the ability to dynamically create responses. It’s the Uncanny Valley, just in audio form instead of visual — as a species we’re pretty good at detecting cheats. Where the problem comes in is with people who aren’t in full possession of their faculties, for whatever reason, and yes the elderly tend to be one such group. To such people, the odd and disjointed way that the machine answers just seems like a particularly inept intern reading from a script.

Personally, I don’t think that ANY form of automated telephone advertising should be legal, let alone openly deceptive ones such as this. My phone is my link to family and friends, especially so in times of emergency, as well as my means of contacting emergency services like police and ambulance should the need arise. In my opinion, it is unconscionable to be tying up that resource with advertisements for whatever cheap crap someone happens to be hawking today.