Comment by Buttons840
1 year ago
I have a Pixel phone and a Google bot can answer the phone for me. It transcribes the conversations on my phone in real-time, and I can push a few buttons to tell to bot what to say--things like "tell me more", or "please tell me why you're calling".
If the entity calling gives an explanation I care about, then I can press a button and the bot says "thanks, connecting you now" and then I can say "hello" with my own voice and have a normal conversation. I think most people think it's just a fancy answering machine, they don't realize I'm controlling it.
Voice calls are on the decline anyway, but I think it's becoming possible to have a very sophisticated AI secretary answer calls for you, even beyond what I've explained Google is doing. Imagine being able to give your LLM phone secretary a prompt and it would answer calls for you. You could tell it something like "the snowblower I listed in the classifieds is already sold" and maybe it could automatically resolve some calls or text messages for you.
I have the same phone and feature. My experience is that everyone always hangs up immediately after facing the screener. I'd love to actually use this feature, I mean hell, I can fucking text responses to them and read what they say through it! But I never can in a realistic setting because people hear robot and hang up. I've been eagerly waiting Apple's release so that the feature becomes more well known. Google really dropped the ball on advertising and honestly I think should have just pushed it to all Android phones because you need to change how people interact. I've worried it would go away because Google deems it "useless" despite its uselessness being that the feature is just not known. There's just too few Pixel phones so people aren't experiencing the screener and so act like a normal human being and go "robot? Ugh, fuck that" and associate this with calling a 1 800 number.
Yeah, most people hang up immediately, mission accomplished probably. Sometimes the doctors office calls and awkwardly starts leaving a full fledged message rather than just saying their name (like the bot tells them to), then, when I press the answer button the bot interrupts them and we start a normal phone call.
In fairness, it may be awkward, but it doesn't waste the caller's time, none of the robot messages are long, and people are quickly able to say their name and why they're calling.
My experience is more them just hanging up. Including the doctor's office. A funny case was my friend used me as a reference for a security clearance. They called, skipped to voicemail, I immediately call back to find a busy line, I leave a message, then I get a call back the next day from a new number in which I now need to just answer any unknown number. That's also happened with doctors and other offices, so it completely undermines the feature for me. Yeah, it helps with robocallers, but the DNC list does a better job. The feature has a ton of potential though, I just think it is useless if it doesn't enter the public lexicon.
I've never had the experience you've had where they start to leave a message. Maybe because I don't live in The Bay? Idk. They either just hang up or go to voicemail. Which always results in the game of phone tag. So not only was mission __not__ accomplished, but the mission difficulty increased.
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> My experience is that everyone always hangs up immediately after facing the screener.
Working as intended!
This isn't a new process, answering machines and operators have been around for ages. If your information is important, leave a message. If you're unwilling to leave a message, text. If you're unwilling to leave a message or text, it wasn't important.
But sometimes the person calling you is calling 300 people for something not important to him, but super important to you. Like power utility payments. If he can't reach you, and decides to leave no message, he himself personally is not much inconvenienced, but your account affects you.
My experience with Call Screen is actually very positive. It screens tons of spam calls and legitimate people who are actually calling for me do talk to my robot assistant, I get a quick transcription, and I pick up. It's why I can't quit Google's Pixels.
Maybe it's regional, I'm in the Bay Area, and people are used to it here by now.
> Maybe it's regional, I'm in the Bay Area, and people are used to it here by now.
I was actually wondering this too. Bay Area is a bubble of its own. I wouldn't be surprised if people were just more used to tech in general.
Well, if they hang up, then the call is not that important.
You'd think that, but tell that to my university who says "call us as soon as you get this message" and nothing else. You're right in that it never is really that important, but that's true in the same sense that most calls aren't important. Either way, I don't end up knowing but if I responded I'd spend less time dealing with whatever it is. (Good god, can people just leave proper fucking messages? Say why you called! And don't get me started with texts or slack messages that are like "hey" or "we need to talk" and nothing else... types "hey" in slack. Asked what they want. Refuses to elaborate. Asks to huddle. Wants to know if there are cookies in the break room)
> I think most people think it's just a fancy answering machine, they don't realize I'm controlling it.
FWIW, I'm betting it is just a fancy answering machine for most people. I use this feature (couldn't live without it), but I've never once been in-the-loop. My phone acts autonomously! I checked the logs for a few months, but I don't even bother anymore. It's never had a false positive.
Ditto, it really should be the standard. Well, as well as the government actually enforcing these laws strictly. I am pretty sure they could compel companies to maintain and filter out spam/robo calls. Especially if it costs them $$$$$