Loading ...phone conversation
April 11th, 2002
dailing….
“Hi, Iowa City Transit, how may I help you?”
“Hi, I was wondering about the schedule for the LakeView bus on Westhills Dr.”
“Yes, I can tell schedule. Which bus?”
“LakeView.”
“Ok, where?”
“Westhills Dr.”
“Is it by Lincoln or by Johnson Ave.?”
“It’s closer to Johnson Ave.”
“I can’t understand that. Is it by Lincoln or by Johnson Ave.?”
“Johnson Ave.”
“There will be a bus at 12:42.”
“Thanks.” click
/me suspect i’ve been talking to a female robot instead of a live person. 
16 Comments Leave a Comment
April 11th, 2002 at 3:40 pm April 11th, 2002 at 4:06 pmPEOPLE: i was talking to a LIVE PERSON (who obviously had hearing and mental problem)
Oh.. I think it WAS a robot because the Amtrak hotline has a robot that sounds and responds like a real woman unless you give answers that are not programmed in there… Call back and test her with weird comments and stuff. ^_^
I called United Airlines once and went through the same type of thing. I spent a week swearing it was a retarted person, them my mom informed me that it was an AVR *automated voice responce* Very high tech. more and more companies are using them. They are able to respond to most things, and when they don’t understand something you get a responce like you said above. Most companies call their programs something different, the one name I can remember is “wildfire”. It is amazing how far technology has come, but it is almost frieghtening. oh yeah - if you really confuse the program it will send you directly to a live person, one minute you are talking to a computer *with a real preson’s voice* and the next minute “how may i help you” can be kind of unnerving if you don’t know what just happened ^^;;
the thing is i really doubt iowa city (a very small city) has the money or need to implement such high technology.
Talking to recorded messages is such a pain in the ass.