The Republicans called today...
Not that that’s particularly newsworthy, or even politically stratifying - the Democrats do the exact same thing. No, the strange thing was the voice.
The call began with the general opening lines “Obama is ruining the country, Hilldog will too...” as are so often voiced in pre-recorded phone messages. I interrupted, asserting that I was speaking with a robot, but the voice corrected me, saying that it was a real person, speaking through a computer for quality-control purposes.
Weird.
This did not register with me immediately. “Yes,” I thought, “that’s what the robot wants me to think.” We carried on a normal enough conversation, as two people (even as strangers, one of whom is trying to extract some cash money from the other) are wont to do, but something just wasn’t quite right about the voice.
“uh-huh” “yeah”
We say all kinds of little things like that in the midst of a conversation, to reaffirm the other person that we are listening and comprehending. The voice said all of these things too - but the timing was never quite on point. The flow of our conversation was always weirdly stilted.
I had to know who (or what) I was talking to, and so I mustered the first DIY Turing Test that came to mind:
“Which is bigger, a hippopotamus or a dog?”
The voice responded, “A hippo... I am a real person, but I am speaking through a computer for quality control purposes.”
I got sort of excited at this point, and I told the voice that I was really fascinated by the whole technological aspect of the interaction that we were in the middle of having, but that no, I wasn’t about to give any money to the GOP and that I hoped the voice would have a good day. The voice then (perhaps via the press of a large red button) launched into the closing marketing spiel, and the call was done. (There was even some canned laughter in the midst of the unscripted part of our conversation).
That’s the thing - apparently it’s the same damn voice regardless of who is making the call. (Naturally, it was a male sounding voice). I’m not sure what considerations went into the particular choice that they made, or whether or not there are a range of options used for different demographics (and again, how this is playing out on the other side of the political landscape), but the end result was more than a bit unsettling.
I wish I could remember any particular details about the voice’s dialect. I don’t know a ton about text-to-speech programs (or enough about phonology/phonetics at the moment) - but something of the sort must have been employed, unless perhaps the GOP is considering tossing a toupée on a hippo and calling it a dark horse candidate _1 - necessitating the inclusion of an even larger “HIPPO” button on the telemarketer’s control panel.
_1((bad etymology jokes))
