Robots can work all the time and don't need breaks or encouragement. They can be made increasingly intelligent. We are expecting to have more and more of them in our lives. Currently, the automatic phone personalities have limited abilities to verify comfortably that they are speaking to the right person.
"To be sure that we (???) are speaking ('they' aren't, they are playing a tape) to the right person, please state the year you were born. Ooops, you responded too quickly. We weren't ready to listen. Please state the year you were born. Ok, please state the year you were born two or three times in a row. That way, we may be able to pick up what you are saying. Now, to continue the process of confirming your identity, please state your maternal grandmother's middle name. Well, maybe you will need to state your maternal grandmother's middle name several times. And, just to be sure, please state the square footage of your current residence."
"For better security, please create a password for future use with our online system. It should be a password that you do not use for any other device or system. It should contain at least one lower case letter, and at least one upper case letter, and at least one numeral, and at least one punctuation mark. It should be at least 15 characters in all. This password will be good for a period of 24 hours. After that, you will need to create a new password. We take the matter of security very seriously."
"We will now connect you to one of our representatives as soon as they have finished helping others. Your current wait time is under one hour."
