Topic: The brilliant world of voice recognition

[Bloodworth]

So, I had to call SBC/AT&T today about an ongoing billing flub caused by Sprint.  Anyways, they've decided to abandon pushing buttons in favor of the more "user friendly" voice recognition computer operators.

STUPID COMPUTER: "To get started, say or enter your phone number"
BLOODWORTH: *types in
STUPID COMPUTER "It will be easier to help you if you give me your phone number."
BLOODWORTH: *types again
*repeat until I scream "operator"

STUPID COMPUTER "To find someone that can help you, please say what you need in a few words" *gives examples
BLOODWORTH: "Unauthorized charges?"
STUPID COMPUTER: "I'm sorry I didn't understand.  Try..." gives more examples
BLOODWORTH: "Unauthorized charges.... wait - Billing"
STUPID COMPUTER: "Ok, service.  Would you like to add service or cancel service? You can also say 'none of the above'"
BLOODWORTH: "None of the above"
STUPID COMPUTER: "Ok, New Service.  I'll connect you now"

[S-U-P-E-R]

I would have surely said "blood and darkness" by that point

[Bill Aurion]

Maybe if you said "I'd like to add service" it'd do "none of the above"!

[wandering]

ahaha.

I think, though I know this might sound crazy, that at&t's phone line might be made more 'user friendly' if they connected you with a real person right away.

[animecyberrat]

I have SPrint and all yo have to do to talk to someone is say Representative as soon as the voice starts talking and boom your there.  

[TMW]

Yeah...every now and then, I'll hear my mother in the other room screaming OPERATOR into the phone.

And she's positive that closed captioning is done by voice recognition.  

[Invincible Donkey Kong]

I hate computer-operated machines like that because it's just not very satisfying to kick a computer's ass.

[wandering]

So, you hate Nintendo's computer-operated answering service?

[Invincible Donkey Kong]

I hold no bias towards Nintendo's answering service.  All computer-operated machines are the same.