15. Why It's Bad to Be a Robot on the Phone

A New York Health department employee named Ronald Dillon was suspended for 20 days for answering the phone using a robot voice. One woman hung on up Dillon thinking he was a robot. He claims he is being bullied at his workplace and his boss says he’s working unprofessionally. A judge said his suspension was legal. There are many researches going on about how humans react to robot voices. One study done by Min Kyung Lee from Carnegie Mellon University studied the different ways people responded to a robot receptionist. About half of the people treated it like a human and the other half treated it like a machine. They way the people treated the robot could be determined by the way they began the conversation. If they said hello to the robot, they’d be polite and make small talk. On the other hand, those who didn’t would cut straight to the point. Lee says humans follow certain scripts, and the one dealing with humans is different than the one dealing with machines. The voice of the robot also matters. One study shows people prefer robots with a high-pitched voice rather than a lower-pitched voice. Lee says the woman was right to hang up on Dillon because “today’s robot systems aren’t as good as humans are at listening and responding.” Some robots out there, however, are very convincing. One example is one going by the name Samantha West and how it took a team at Newsweek hours to make it admit it was a robot. As time goes by, companies are using more pre-recorded phrases and sounds in their systems, which are commonly known as “robots.” Even so, most people prefer talking to a real, breathing person.

Rose Eveleth wrote this article for The Atlantic. Her purpose is to inform the reader about robot answering systems and how people react to them. She uses outside information for various researches to give the article more credibility. Her diction is casual, but more elaborate when she quotes what a researcher said. She finishes by making a simple and direct statement: that people prefer talking to humans and that it is not a good idea to impersonate a robot on the phone. Eveleth was successful in transmitting the information in a clear and simple way.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/why-its-bad-to-be-a-robot-on-the-phone/382212/