I got a phone call today. I'm pretty sure it was from a bot. The voice said that "he" was calling on behalf of firefighters, and their support of charitable groups. (The specific charity was left unstated, but it could be a kind of blanket request to fill coffers.) It's possible that the firefighters' charity that supports charities uses a company that uses bots, but it was pretty definitely a bot.
It was pretty impressive. It was also quite interesting to note the very formal speech patterns, but it sounded quite realistic. After I challenged him on the basis that I thought "he" was a bot, "he" assured me that he was a real person and not a bot. But the formality in the speech patterns continued. He didn't laugh at being called a bot. He didn't get annoyed. The tenor and affect of his speech remained unchanged throughout the call. At one point I noted that I already worked with firefighters (through ESS and Community Policing), and did a fair amount of work for them. There was no response to that except, "Well, we're happy we can count on your support." Which is the same kind of terminology that "he" was using in regard to asking for donations.
I'm saying "he," but I'm still assuming that this was a bot. It was a male voice. However, I'm pretty sure that the clincher was that, at one point, I said that I would have to hang up the phone because I had to pick up the keys for the Community Policing van. Regardless of how scripted a normal person was, if this person was a real firefighter I very strongly suspect that, at that point, he would have gone off script because of the connection in terms of tasks. There was no reaction at all.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure "he" was a bot.
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