Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She's A Robot - Part 2

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.

Over the course of the next hour, several TIME reporters called her back, working to uncover the mystery of her bona fides. Her name, she said, was Samantha West, and she was definitely a robot, given the pitch perfect repetition of her answers. Her goal was to ask a series of questions about health coverage—"Are you on Medicare?" etc.—and then transfer the potential customer to a real person, who could close the sale.

If you want, you can call her too. Her number is [phone]. This number, if you Google it, is the subject of much discussion online as other recipients of Samantha West calls complain on chat boards about the mysteriously persistent lady who keeps calling them. "A friendly sounded woman on the other end claimed I requested health insurance information," writes one mark. "She doggedly refused to deviate from her script."

When the number was called a second time, a real live employee of Premier Health Plans Inc., who gave his name as Bruce Martin, answered the phone. He said he was not sure if Samantha West's phone number, mentioned above, was one of the company's numbers. "First of all, we use TV, we use radio, we use Internet," said Martin. He described the company as selling life insurance, health insurance and dental insurance. He asked that TIME publish the name of his company, the website and phone number in the article. "If you are going to publish this in the magazine, I'd like to get something out of it," he said. The TIME reporter agreed to do just that.

Martin also said he would inquire internally about whether Samantha West worked for the company, but would not be able to respond to the request Monday night. TIME will update the story with any additional information he provides.

[imagi_natin]

Imagine that it's an actual woman on the other line and she's just like, "Why does everyone think that I'm a robot?.." LMAO

[xnph]

"You sound like a robot." "i understand..."

[thetwistedsamurai]

The thing that's freaky about this is if you realize how TERRIBLE most AI operators are. They can usually barely understand you. This one is SCARILY intelligent.

[ToxicCoffeeTM]

What makes this really uncanny is how she'll slightly change her tone from happy to somewhat sad, confused, and slightly frustrated

[Larry]

Normally asking them a question (something simple like "What time is it" or an obvious movie question) will prove if they're a robot or not.

[xrotarebil]

It's a series of human voice snippets that are being selected by a computer. Notice the vocal tone changes towards the end. The repetition about the bad connection. A human would've been frustrated a lot faster than this.

[GaLexi]

I like how he immediately guessed that it's a robot when if I was the one it was calling I wouldn't guess a thing

[Poopiy_]

If you said, “HELP ME IM DYING!” it’ll probably go, “Haha I understand, maybe you have a bad connection?”

[CrazyOwlDude]

I would read or watch a movie about a robot who doesn't know they are a robot and stays in denial. Would make a great phycological horror!

[animusrex]

The same exact responses from part 1. Definitely a robot. Pretty creepy stuff & I'm sure not everyone would expect this if they received a call from this recorded response bot and would actually give out their info.

[Naevw]

This was *NINE* years ago. I don't even want to think about how much more advanced this kind of crap is now that chatGPT and the AI voice bots are super prominent.

[cheesegizzler]

I like how each video he gets angrier and angrier.

[sleepyspacefrog]

they should really add "i'm not a robot" to the sound board 😭😭

[Guy_Hre_tv]

This is just haunting. In a surreal way the robot just sounds desperate, and disappointed in the end..

[Tye]

This just sounds like two robots talking to each other

[DaveN]

I'll be fun to deal with this type of call by stating "I am a robot and how can I help you?"

[Plushykittie]

that uh, tapped into my derealistication

[nomanjones]

I got the same call, and I just kept asking what time it was, and the script started over.

[DinRosen]

this is a type of scam where the scammer asks if you can hear them, if youre on a specific insurance, etc. to get you to say ‘yes’ to any of them so that they can use that recording of you saying ‘yes’ when making over-the-phone transactions. its sneaky but its an old trick in the book.

[PixelatedChatter]

Imagine if self-conscious robots were like this, pieces of code, slapped into hunks of metal, trying to desperately convince themselves they're not what they *actually are*