Samantha West, Robot Telemarketer

[Godot]

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Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She’s A Robot

The phone call came from a charming woman with a bright, engaging voice to the cell phone of a TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer. She wanted to offer a deal on health insurance, but something was fishy.

When Scherer asked point blank if she was a real person, or a computer-operated robot voice, she replied enthusiastically that she was real, with a charming laugh. But then she failed several other tests. When asked “What vegetable is found in tomato soup?” she said she did not understand the question. When asked multiple times what day of the week it was yesterday, she complained repeatedly of a bad connection.

The Only Thing Weirder Than a Telemarketing Robot

Sometimes, you have to think like a scammer.

So, when I saw that an apparent robot telemarketer named Samantha West had randomly called a Time writer and denied she/it/they was a robot, I wondered: where could I buy such an interactive voicebot?

This query led me down a strange rabbit hole. And along the way, I discovered that Samantha West may be something even stranger than a telemarketing robot. Samantha West may be a human sitting in a foreign call center playing recorded North American English through a soundboard.