“Yes, I would like some vinyl siding.”

“Yes, I would like satellite TV.”

“No, I am not sure that I will be voting for your candidate, but I would be glad to donate.”

I would very much like to meet the person who pitched, and sold the first robo-caller. In Detroit right now, in an alley, nursing some fortified courage, is where I will probably meet this forward-thinking Marketeer. A person who fundamentally misunderstands cold-calling and human interaction to such a degree, one can only assume they are unemployed and unable to panhandle.

Is there a person alive who actually listens through a full robo-call other than to push the “take me off your f-ing list” button? Perhaps Aspergers patients who would like the practice, maybe a schizophrenic who isn’t sure which voice is on the phone and which is in their head?

I am not sure if it was intentional, but this bit of diabolically annoying technology is giving us a capitalist’s answer to the Turing test. Alan Turing was a brilliant Mathematician who devised a simple test to deem a machine “sentient,” and the method was a conversation in which a person is fooled into believing that the computer is another human. Ideally, one assumes that robo-callers will reach this with full market force before, if not shortly after, MIT does. The simple reason being economics and evolution.

Economically, more funds will go toward keeping people on the phone, as this yields a higher percentage of sales. Also, computers like this will be infinitely cheaper than humans, have programmable dialects and even language modules for other countries. Evolution will be present in the many companies using different approaches in parallel, learning from each other and building on the mountain of statistical data gained one annoying car warranty call at a time. With each hardware and software iteration, the conversation will get a little bit better.

When a human and a computer are indistinguishable from one another on the phone, it isn’t much of a stretch for a robo-call to sample your voice after a short conversation and use it to call your mother. What percentage of the populace will have to be fooled and for how long before the test is passed? What happens when less ethical persons get their hands on this technology

Maybe my digital secretary, or intelligent digital agent can screen my calls with a Turing Captcha.

What kind of questions will be hardest to answer?