Cold calls made by robots: innovation or harassment?

Software robots using artificial intelligence technology are being used to make automated telemarketing calls in China. But questions are being raised as to whether this technology is a useful innovation or just a form of automated harassment.

Beijing Youth Daily spoke to some Beijing residents who told the paper that they frequently received cold calls from robots. They said that it’s often difficult to distinguish whether the voice on the phone is man or machine, because the robots sound lifelike and can answer many basic questions in a natural voice. It’s only when customer starts asking complex or detailed questions that the AI begins to struggle and it’s clear that it’s not a person on the other end of the line.

The newest telemarketing software can make 800 to 1,000 calls every day, which is about four or five times what a human call center operator can manage. This reduces the labor costs for the company making the calls. But many people have come to regard robot calls as a form of harassment. One man who spoke with Shanghai-based news agency The Paper said that the robot callers are “unlike a real person, who will take the initiative to hang up after being rejected” and that they robots refuse to end the call. He now receives around three calls a day, “some selling houses, teaching English, as well as asking to borrow money, I feel that it is happening much more frequent than before,” he said.