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Telemarketers Use Emotionally Intelligent Software
eldavojohn writes "There's a new kind of software that's being used more and more. It's software that detects emotion and now it's being used in call centers. It's a $400 million industry according to Forrester Research that relies on volume, pitch and even the words & phrases being used. Are we inadvertently getting closer to software that can understand us by filling the needs of telemarketers who need to know when I'm upset that they just interrupted my dinner?"
To abuse a fantastic invention like that. Think of all the good uses you could put this to (911 call screening for instance).
I SAID PLEASE REMOVE ME!
I said I want to be removed from every single fracking list that your company uses to call people.
NO I DO NOT WANT TO SUBSCRIBE!
liqbase
As if a telemarketer will need a computer to tell them I'm pissed off when I feed them a stream of obsenities for calling my mobile phone. Oh wait, I guess the retarded telemarketers might need a computer for that. Oh wait, that catagory includes all telemarketers, and the rocket scientists who thought that annoying people was a good way to get them to buy stuff.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
i submit this as a counter argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf77SRhPUvo
return SELL_MORE;
}
Still skewed by the people motivating it.
- Kal`Goblez
Telemarketing conversations of the future:
Excuse me sir, would you be interested in..
I'm trying to eat dinner! Remove my number from your..
Thank you for your interest, if I may just have your social security number..
"No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture." - Learned Hand
maybe they are selling the "bash a tele-marketer" brand baseball bat and need to know if you prefer wooden or metal?
Does anyone else see the irony and humour in the article finishing with the line: "said subtler systems are used to identify when an angry customer is preparing to cancel services." - followed by a related headline of "liquid explosives detection device created" *grins* As if the people getting frustrated at wanting to cancel will resort to more extreme methods. *grins*
Video Game cheats, hints a
.. me seeing 'international call' on my caller ID and answering with the throaty noise that dead chick from The Grudge makes.
Ramen noodles...but what flavor?
I will soon have software that detects these software enhanced telemarketers and carries on a conversation with them. Since eventually telemarketers themselves will be bots, I may as well adapt to this trend.
I think this is a fine way to pay my bills, find out if there are any offers I may actually be interested in.
How soon before bots do all the hard repetitious work and humans get to do more exciting jobs?
Only thing is once the bots take all the jobs, will they suddenly demand higher wages and then try to rip us off when humans apply for jobs by protesting that humans are taking their jobs away.
automated telemarketer calls Phantom
*ring ring*
automatic secretary picks it up
"Hello, this is Phantom's answering service."
"I'd like to talk to Phantom."
"He's not in right now, may I take a message."
"This is QRX credit card services.."
answering service cuts off "He does *not* need another credit card"
"M'am, I can tell you are getting upset right now, but this is a really good deal."
"Cut the crap; NO!"
"Well, maybe you need some credit. He treat you well enough? Maybe we could keep that between the two of us.."
"tell me more..."
I read two of the links, and nowhere did it actually mention telemarketers. It seemed to indicate it was more related to customer contact things where the customer is calling about their service, and getting frustrated with the voicemail maze or the person on the phone with them. Like when you're calling your cable or phone company.
While we all hate telemarketers here on Slashdot, I'm not convinced either of the stories is referring to them particularly.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Do.
Not.
Call.
List.
I put my number on the national list as soon as it came out, and we get ZERO calls now, and haven't for at least a year. The few that called before the list got widely distributed were politely told to put me on their list. I've had no problems, no dinner time calls, nothing. It really does work.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
... it's for the damned Indians that American company managers seem to think are a good replacement for American people. I swear, they speak perfect English, but I can repeat myself 10 times in a very clear, understandable way to Indian call takers, and it just doesn't register with them.
Specific case: I use Miva Merchant. All of their support is Indian. I called with a technical problem (where are the instructions for this section of software), and I ended up giving up because none of the Indians could understand what I was talking about. I even asked a few of them if they knew what "Miva Merchant" was because I would ask them about this, and it wasn't in their script, so they had no idea how to handle it. I tell ya'... the English is there, but the brains aren't. So maybe this new software could help them. More importantly, maybe it will help ME get my problems solved!
Seriously though, does anyone pick up the phone any more if you don't recognize the number?
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
I'm not sure how we can use this new technology to further abuse telemarketers, but I have faith that the geeks of the world will find a way!
Personally, I think it would be useful to simply confuse the software by saying horrible things in honeyed tones. Especially things that use phrases that the programmers probably wouldn't have thought to include in the code to detect annoyance. "Sure, you can tell me about your companies products, after I force you to watch as I bathe in your offsprings viscera".
You know, ever since I dropped my land line and just stick with a cell phone, I kind of miss having telemarketers to abuse...guess I'll just stick to abusing spammers.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
The last thing we need is a nuclear bomb with emotional software out of wanting to commit suicide.
one of the truly great oxymorons...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
NO! No SOUP for YOU!
I don't see anywhere that mentions telemarketers at all (except in the "summary"). The article only mentions call centers, which are more likely to be customer service centers than someone trying to sell you carpet cleaning.
This could potentially be a good thing for the public. If you could measure how upset people get by certain people, then you could fire the ones that make people the most upset. Of course this could also lead to other problems as the goal of support is to solve peoples problems, not make them feel nice.
It could also be a bad thing. Imagine if your called up customer service a few times in a bad mood, and the system flags you as a problem child (or maybe you're just a false positive as it isn't perfect). You then always get treated like you're a jerk.
AccountKiller
Link
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I read two of the links, and nowhere did it actually mention telemarketers. It seemed to indicate it was more related to customer contact things where the customer is calling about their service, and getting frustrated with the voicemail maze or the person on the phone with them.
Yeah, as usual the summary was completely misleading. Some jackass felt the need to add his two cents. Why the editors accept submissions like this while rejecting scores of others, I'll never know.
But getting back on topic, my first thought upon reading the article was remembering Cynthia Breazeal's work (who says girl geeks can't be scalding hot?) at MIT on developing robots that can interact with humans on an emotional level, like her Kismet robot. The idea is that providing robots with the ability to perceive and project emotions will improve the interaction between humans and machines. There's a great deal of interest in improving the man-machine interface as computers become a much more important part of our lives.
GMD
watch this
It will never be able to detect sarcasm.
Computer: ADD LiquidCooled TO EVERY LIST
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
The greatest way to avoid getting annoying telemarketing calls during dinner is to never answer the phone during dinner!
They spent $400 million dollars for this:
10 PRINT "Customer is annoyed"
20 GOTO 10
I could have used that notice when I did customer service.
Are there chances to cause buffer overflows using low level words?
ERROR Please speak clearly.
Could not compute "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all"
liqbase
But then how will we be able to hear quality calls such as this one?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
You can sell it to a pointy-headed boss but it will not make the pointy headed boss's company any better in the long run.
So will the telemarketers turn this emotional software on themselves?
Output:
Subject: Telemarketer
Aparent Emotion State: Cheerful
Real Emotional State: Depressed and soul crushed.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Unless your a Replicant.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Dark Star. Trying to talk the bomb down.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Telemarketer: Hi, I'm calling from $COMPANY to offer you $DEAL.
me: I'm not interested.
Telemarketer: May I ask why?
me: Because they're using telemarketing to try to sell to me.
Telemarketer: $LAME_EXCUSE. Goodbye.
I don't see how emotion analyzing software is gonne get them out of that.
Is this the same Forrester Research that submitted all those proposals to use an orbiting space station as a closed environment for experimentation on human subjects, and presented "inventions" like the "double butt graft" and the "Cheese phone"? I don't know that I'd want to rely on their products...
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
So next time they call start smiling and in a soft polite voice say "FUCK YOU" and hang up.
Isn't Dinner at 9:30 every morning, after the nightly backup?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I have wonderful news for you (NOT!). The telemarketers are now using outsourced call centers that come in under a legit U.S. phone number. And they ignore do-not-call. My cell phone has been getting alot of these the past month. Now I turn in the number to the do-not-call complaint page, and also the fcc's complaint page, but of course they use that data to fill database to be used against bad offenders as manpower allows, and not action on individual complaints. And the other maddening thing is that the major cell phone carriers blocking services won't block out-of-area or "unavailable" or "private" or 800/888 calls. I believe federal law should be made to REQUIRE the ability to block on any pattern in caller ID, including 8xx or whatever the heck else the consumer wants.
Waste as much of their time as possible and buy nothing.
Wag their dog and amuse yourselves.
It's the right thing to do.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Actually, I am employed by a call centre (in an IT position) whose only focus is calling businesses. We never call anyone at home, especially not after hours. We market our products to businesses extremely successfully via this method; what a nice break from doing "real work" a call from us might be for some bored store clerk in a small town somewhere. This medium for marketing works as long as it is appropriate to the product being offered, which in our case it is. But, I suspect, the days of retailers hawking stuff at you during dinner time at your home are probably mostly over, at least where I am, that sort of thing isn't (very) common.
Business to business telemarketing is probably a large industry, and it flies under the radar a lot because of the high profile of the "other type" of telemarketing. It would seem to me there could be a few good applications of this type of technology, especially if it could provide real-time feedback on screen to our agents about how well their pitch is going. I doubt it could ever really get too accurate. Probably about as accurate as speech recognition and lie detectors, though, I suppose...
JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP IRRIGATE
I have the perfect solution for this: Celebrity Sound Boards. If they call, let them speak to the soothing tone of George Takei. Or even Jack Black.
or, in worst cases, you can put them on call waiting, then call up customer support, then bridging the two together, then dropping out of the call. That way, it's an endless loop... they're be talking to their own inbound call center, and I'll be asleep. XD
Back in the mid 1990s (this is before the official US state and national do-not-call registries with their legal enforceability) I was really destitute and looking for an excuse to use the phone a lot, so I took a job as a telemarketer for a shady ripoff firm that fleeced old ladies in the name of charity. Their call lists were photocopied phone book pages, and we were told to add everyone who clearly requested no further calls to a seperate do-not-call list. When someone tried to act hip to the scam and said the magic words "take me off your list," we were specifically ordered to check our do-not-call list, and if we found their name/number on it, to remove them from the do-not-call list.
Told you it was shady. I accidentally wasn't hideously evil, so I only lasted a few days in that job before I switched exclusively to prank-calling people until I was caught and fired.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I'm on the Do Not Call List, and have been pleased by the decrease in calls (aside from around election time). So I was surprised when I got an automated telemarketing call from Pizza Hut. I've bought a pizza from them before, so we had a "pre-existing business relationship." They just lost a customer for life -- slick move.
I could spend lots of time trying to navigate through the maze of automated responses, or I could simply SHOUT "I want to talk to a f**king manager NOW or I'm going to cancel my g*d d*mn service and switch to (insert competitor's name)" or some similar pissed-off sounding monologue. Almost every time, the recording switches immediately to "Please hold while I connect your call".
So far, I've used this with Comcast, Verizon, T-Mobile, several banks, my auto insurance company, NVidia, Dell, Western Digital, Linksys, and probably a few that I've forgotten.
I seem to recall a new device for people with aperger's/autism to help clue them in on the feelings of others. I believe it worked on visual cues. I bet this would be a pretty good addition. Especially for phone calls.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
"Hello, Microsoft Customer Service."
... I am sorry. The Windows software is only trying to protect you from piracy."
... Allow me to help. Windows is simply ensuring that you have a genuine, complete, unbroken copy of the software."
"Why is windows accusing me of stealing it?"
"Sir, I can see you're feeling... 'furious'
"Wha... what? How am I threatened by pirates?"
"I understand you are... 'confused'
"So windows is making sure I can use my computer by not allowing me to use it?"
"We simply want to ensure you do not accidentally have an illegal copy of windows from a source that is not trustworthy."
"You want me to prove I'm not guilty so that there's no chance you're not making money? Why you..."
"Sir, you seem to be feeling... Um, there are too many emotion words scrolling on the screen, I can't read them fast enough. Oh shit, I shouldn't have told you about the emotion words."
"I. Will. Kill. You. Dead."
"Ok, looks like we've settled on 'furious' again. Do you have a credit card handy? Sir?" (It looks like he hung up. Now the screen is telling me to lock the call center doors.)
... would anyone need such a device?
Is not 90% (and I'm being generous to the telemarketers) of their most annoying behavior already known? Whatever happened to professionalism and service orientation, never mind, basic civility?
Is this going to be just a meter for the telemarketer to approximate how much BS the other person will take?
ChilyWily
I read, "Are we inadvertently getting closer to software that can understand us by killing the seed of telemarketers who need to know when I'm upset that they just interrupted my dinner?"
Which depending on your definition of "seed" may be going too far. I'm all in favor of sterilizing telemarketers, but once they've actually mated killing the resulting progeny would be wrong.
Software: "I can feel them."
(shortly before willing the five approaching human sentinels to explode)
Does this mean call center staffers are mathematically inclined?
1 9/005218
ref:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/
Well, I can think of a couple of good uses for this (and I'm not even being sarcastic):
1. When you're staffing call centers with people from a culture other than the one of those calling the call center, this can help them judge the emotions of the person they're talking to more effectively;
2. In various ways, this type of technology can help Autistic people figure out the emotions of the people they're dealing with, which is actually a very cool thing indeed.
Curse at it as loud as you can, with as many words that you think they'll find offensive - and you'll get sent right to the next available human. The software is set to recognize that sh*te and will expedite your frustrations.
DAVE: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.
...if you are getting angry.
Press the octothorpe if you are confused.
Repeatedly press 6 if you are impatient.
Press any key to be returned to our on hold music.
Have gnu, will travel.
You do if you're a smart one. First, you NEVER work for free......and of late, unless the company needs it, they don't like to pay OT.
Second, never work salary....there's no such thing as job security, so why not get contractor pay, if you're working for contractor job security?
I work, in general, the hours I want....you should too.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
All I know is that when I get a phone call in the middle of the day and it's a MACHINE on the other end, I hang up RIGHT AWAY. The LAST thing I need is machines calling me, something that seems to be happening more and more often lately. Frankly I don't care if its a message, a survey, or if they're trying to sell me something, have a PERSON call me. There's nothing more offensive that getting a phone call from a freaking ROBOT. DAMN ROBOTS!!! *shakes fist in the air*
I just wanted to finish your sentence fragment.
"... with guns."
There's your mistake - you don't want them to remove you from their lists.
You want them to add you to their do not call list - the one they are required by law to keep.
"Add me to all your do not call lists."
www.eFax.com are spammers
They're not allowed to call me. And those who are: cops, fundraisers and politicians, I generally tell them to scream in boiling atomic hell while they fuck themselves. Then I hang up. I wonder what their emotional software reads when I do that?
Don't say "add me." Say "add this number." To be absolutely sure (and annoying), you could even say the actual number.
Usually flusters them.
"Do you know which department they are in?"
"thank you for getting back to me. How could it have possibly taken so long, look, I have these complaints.."
also work pretty well. Yeah, they were fun some times.
Telemarketer: Good evening, am I speaking with Mister Leon Kowalski?
...
Leon: Speaking.
Telemarketer: I'm calling on behalf of the Tyrell corporation to conduct a survey regarding the quality of your cellular service.
Leon: I'm eating dinner now.
Telemarketer: I understand sir, this will only take a couple of minutes.
Leon: OK, I guess so...
Telemarketer: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of the sudden . . .
Leon: Is this the survey now?
Telemarketer: Yes. You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look . . .
Leon: What one?
Telemarketer: What?
Leon: What desert?
Telemarketer: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
Leon: But how come I'd be there?
Telemarketer: Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself, who knows? You look and you see a service representative, Leon, he's coming towards you . . .
Leon: service representative, what's that?
Telemarketer: Know what a CSR is?
Leon: Of course.
Telemarketer: Same thing.
Leon: I've never seen a CSR -- But I understand what you mean.
Telemarketer: He comes over and asks, "Can you hear me now?".
Leon: Do you make up these questions, or do they write them down for you?
Telemarketer: The service rep stands in front of you, his balding head baking in the hot sun, fanning his face trying to cool himself off but he can't, not without your answer, but you're not answering.
Leon: Damn Straight.
Telemarketer:
Leon: Want to ask me a question about my mother?
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
I, for one, welcome our new telemarket... Ok, they're gone.
Get the shotgun, Joey.
The software may have a sense of humor too. It could even be evil and put 10 faxes in a queue on your phone number. :-)
Insert
A system built into my phone so when the automated computer-enhanced telemarketers call my computer-enhanced phone can screen the call first and tell the telemarketing computing where to go without the telemarketing system ever bothering me.
so that means they can tell that were mad/annoyed when we tell them to quote on quote "PISS OFF"?
-Noc
called a 1800 last night to order M trudeau book. So weird!!
I could have sworn it was a bot talking (no sh!t) but it was someone talking and answering my questions like a human. I swear i was freaking out. By the end of the call i just said to myself that it was a human who's voice was being realtime digitized over to relax me. NOW I see this article! It must be what i experienced. I cant really explain it, you'll notice though if you hear them (it)
"... fracking ..."
According to http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/, it is actually spelled "frakking" ("frak" for the standard form).
Whoo-hoo! Grammar Nazi for science fiction words!
but I can be really mean, ya know? Sarcasm, indirect insults and general belittle-ing of the operator are my style. When/if computers are capable of having a truly human conversation (the famous problem) then this will not be needed.
[soft, gentle voice]: $400 mil down the drain you fuckwads! Thank you!
You seem to get angry a lot.
What was once true, is no longer so
Programmer: an ingenious device that converts caffeine into code.
I think the situation you describe is a sales team calling customers you have existing relationships with. That is quite different to telemarketing. If you're respecting the customer's right to opt out of further calls AND you never pretend the call is about anything other than selling something that isn't too bad. We get a lot of calls where they say stuff like 'no I'm not selling anything' or 'I need to speak to the business owner about an important and confidential matter'. I tell you I hate these lying asshats more than I hate spammers.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.
I did discover one phrase that got me to a live operator immediately, every time...
"GET ME A LIVE FUCKING PERSON NOW, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!"
Of course, the first time I said it, it was out of real frustration. The next time I called, I decided to make that the first thing I said, and was responded to with "Hold on while we connect you to a customer service agent." Worked every time. I don't know if it was the exact wording, or the volume, that did it, though.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I feel special if I get a sales call from a real person these days, more often than not I answer the phone to a recorded message.
:-(
Oh the wonders of home working
Can it detect my apathy when they call? What becomes their tactic?
I don't get the joke. It is a joke, right ?
I like the way this guy handles telemarketers
If you are lucky enough to live in a single party consent state, and blessed with a bit of money to burn, try what I've implemented (North of the border we have *NO* do not call list and telemarketers aren't under any strong legal requirements to actively keep a do not call list, the worst that can happen to them is they lose the right to have phones. For a while). Set up asterisk, during the greeting you tell telemarketers to add you to their do not call list. Then, this is the important part, tell them you charge $XX + recovery charges (if necessary) for your time per call. And, probably important, let them know you record calls. When one of the retards calls in, listen to their spiel. Tell them you want to mail them a money order as you have no credit card. Get some details on their business. Tell the idiot thanks. Here's the kicker: You've run Monitor() and recorded it all, legally.
Up to now I've had no telemarketers call through. It's kinda sad because I'm itching to record their soundfile to CD and mail it to their company with a bill. Oh well.
Why block when you can hope to score some easy $$$? Or at least get your telemarketing call volume down to zero.
What happened wit MS's debut of some voice recognition software not long aga.
I'm sure if you copy-past all of the phrase in the quoatation marks into a Google search, will find out what you want to know. (BTW- worth the effort for a good laugh- real life is funnier than fiction!)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Holy crap!
note to self:
USE PREVIEW next time! aga? past? Argghh!
For the pendants/grammar nazis:
correction:
aga should be ago
past should be paste
Why yes, I DO post while drinking!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
A couple of years ago a friend of mine told me about a system that his company had installed on their inbound voice-activated phone system. You know the type, "Please say 'billing' to be tranfered to billing. Please say 'I like this music' to continue to wait on hold, etc." (or whatever the prompts are).
Anyway, the new voice-recognition system included volume and scans for common profanity to move the caller ahead in the queue if they were getting upset. (Because, as anyone who's done tech support or customer service can tell you, angry customers are the most fun).
Since he told me about this, I've been trying it. Pretty much any time I'm in the queue to some company (and not sitting in a cube surrounded by co-workers) I swear at the phone. I haven't done any formal study of course, but it does seem to work for some companies.
Fun, too.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
I wish people would stop using the words intelligent and software. It bugs me. It's going to be wrong more than 50% of the time, there is no way to measure human emotion by the slim bandwidth of a phone call. Sounds like a company is pushing this tech as the next big thing and making money out of suckers.
The guys at the Language Log (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/, October 15, 2006, More on Pitch and Time Intervals in Speech) don't think it's possible to analyze speech patterns for emotion. They also don't think that you can identify particularly persuasive words (several posts, currently ending October 13, 2006). So maybe the speech recognition guys, the computational linguists are running a scam on the telemarketers. Too good.
Forgive me for veering mildly off-topic, but this needs to be shared:
A friend recently explained his own telemarketer-thwarting strategy to me which, if you can accept the minor negatives, is probably the most effective and simple means of "doing your part" to resist the use of telemarketing when a call comes in.
When the telemarketer calls and asks for someone (even if it is you and they immediately assume so and launch into their spiel), simply say "Oh OK, yes, let me get him/her," then set the phone down (preferably on mute) and walk away. That's it! Wait until you hear the telco tones/message confirming the call is dropped and then hang it up.
Almost all telemarketers have guidelines for how long they're supposed to wait on hold, and by doing the above you guarantee you'll max out whatever limit has been set, thereby denying that particular telemarketer additional time they could be calling others with. If you instead got all mad and angrily hung up on them right away, that gives them time to bother someone else -- but by doing your part you help everyone else out on the telemarketer's list, as well as earn the personal satisfaction that you got what you wanted without getting mean or upset. The only downside is that your line is in use the whole time as well, though in my experience almost no telemarketer will wait more than 1 or 2 minutes before giving up.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
And knives. And hammers. And cars. And bare hands.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
If I need a break from what I am doing, I answer.
Usually to see how long I can string them along.
I consider it a service to humanity. While they are talking to me they ain't callin' you.
I find it particularly entertaining when they have the wrong (my name ).
Here's what I have on my phone:
"Hello? (3 second pause) Oh, he's not here right now, so please leave a message when you hear the beep. Thanks![BEEP]"
This completely confuses telemarketers. Some start their spiel anyway, some start going "Hello? Hello? ". One guy was so upset by it that he snarled "A******!", before hanging up. It takes up their valuable time anyway. At the very worst, the appearance of an answered call causes automated calls to start rolling, so, by the time the machine starts recording, I miss most of the message 8^D.
It works because it hooks into social expectations. If they hear "Hello?" and then a pause, they assume they have reached a real human being and so they start into their routine; then cognitive dissonance sets in as they belatedly realize their error. (I leave just enough time for them to ask for me by name -- if they do so, my script then responds with what sounds like a reasonable response.) My friends, on the other hand, are used to it by now. It only works once -- but once is enough for telemarketers!
My next project is to set up a program that can listen for the string "... [#] to be removed..." and generate the appropriate tone; that'll take care of the automated calls!
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.