I hate telemarketing, election influencing and political social network bots impersonating people altogether so it sounds great but doesn't this probably mean it is going to become illegal to build a chatbot, give it a human name and a [legally acquired] human face avatar? Will it actually affect telemarketing/political bots only?
Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
11–20 of 148 posts
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#12Call me crazy, but I have this weird theory that maybe some of these spam calls could be a form of subtle psi-ops, in the vein of "hypernormalization", designed to exacerbate political prejudices. Think of "stochastic resonance". Its one of the few reasons I could think of for "blank" robo calls. They seem almost intentionally annoying, so my thought is that they could be designed to activate and prime irrational reg…
> Its one of the few reasons I could think of for "blank" robo calls.
Telephone spammer software dials a load of numbers, and when someone picks up, only then do they connect the call to a human on their end. It's why you often get a weird pause before they actually say anything, and if there happens not to be a human available you get a "blank" call.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#13bill to ban bots xD... and then suddenly the ability to identify them consistently and correctly apears out of the blue <3
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#14Call me crazy, but I have this weird theory that maybe some of these spam calls could be a form of subtle psi-ops, in the vein of "hypernormalization", designed to exacerbate political prejudices. Think of "stochastic resonance". Its one of the few reasons I could think of for "blank" robo calls. They seem almost intentionally annoying, so my thought is that they could be designed to activate and prime irrational reg…
> Its one of the few reasons I could think of for "blank" robo calls. Telephone spammer software dials a load of numbers, and when someone picks up, only then do they connect the call to a human on their end. It's why you often get a weird pause before they actually say anything, and if there happens not to be a human available you get a "blank" call.
It’s called ‘predictive dialing’.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#15Call me crazy, but I have this weird theory that maybe some of these spam calls could be a form of subtle psi-ops, in the vein of "hypernormalization", designed to exacerbate political prejudices. Think of "stochastic resonance". Its one of the few reasons I could think of for "blank" robo calls. They seem almost intentionally annoying, so my thought is that they could be designed to activate and prime irrational reg…
> Its one of the few reasons I could think of for "blank" robo calls. Telephone spammer software dials a load of numbers, and when someone picks up, only then do they connect the call to a human on their end. It's why you often get a weird pause before they actually say anything, and if there happens not to be a human available you get a "blank" call.
I see. I basically only get blank calls.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#16BTW I have always wondered why do only the major political parties and their allies ever use bots for political influence. Obviously, real geeks could do much better at this if they would want and there probably are many gray/black hat hackers that would probably not hesitate for just moral/legal reasons but there still seems to be no bots that would try to influence something like the votes on net neutrality, ACTA/SOPA, the European Internet copyright law etc.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#17BTW I have always wondered why do only the major political parties and their allies ever use bots for political influence. Obviously, real geeks could do much better at this if they would want and there probably are many gray/black hat hackers that would probably not hesitate for just moral/legal reasons but there still seems to be no bots that would try to influence something like the votes on net neutrality, ACTA/S…
Not a lot of the influence stuff is actually "bots", much of it is simply low-wage humans from another country. Or Facebook ads. And maintaining a large enough pool of burner accounts is hard work or costs money.
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#18I like the idea of this, but I wonder if it will have much impact on the worst offenders. The most frequent and annoying calls are almost always using spoofed numbers and many times originating from outside the country, like India. Is there any way that this law could be enforced... 1)on calls originating outside the state or country? 2) on calls over spoofed numbers?
Agreeing that a thing should be illegal is step 1. At minimum, it allows for prosecution of the most obvious offenders.
And ultimately, money usually trickles back. Why would you be calling Californians if you didn't have an interest (business or otherwise) in California?
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#19I like the idea of this, but I wonder if it will have much impact on the worst offenders. The most frequent and annoying calls are almost always using spoofed numbers and many times originating from outside the country, like India. Is there any way that this law could be enforced... 1)on calls originating outside the state or country? 2) on calls over spoofed numbers?
Sure there is means within the phone industry to determine if the number offered up is the actual number. Last I remember the caller id function was independent of the ANI information.
Now calls are down to either my contact list or the caller leaving a message whose transcription I can review. All others just get ignored. It was bad enough when politicians wrote the laws in such a way their campaigns and charities did not have to have permission to call but with VOIP being abused so much my phone isn't my own.
with regards to the political exception in calls, how will the Federal rule align with the state rule. it was specifically carved out to allow political calls in the do not call system
Re: Bill to ban bots impersonating people for telemarketing and influencing election
#20If people are so easily swayed then perhaps they are just idiots?
There are some cold & hard facts advocates of democracy need to look at. These problems can't be legislatively swept under the rug.