AI could save us from spam

With all the debate around artificial intelligence (AI), from the flat-earthers wanting to go off the grid to escape it, the lazy kids in class doing their essays with it and the tech bros rushing headlong towards it, couldn't we suggest a fourth option - customer interaction?

- KEVIN RITCHIE

Probably the greatest failing that the great sweatshop call centres have, as their operators do their thankless task of cold calling arbitrary people to pitch their wares too, is that the recipients of those calls only have a very tangential link to what the cold callers are trying to flog to them.

I've had someone trying to get me to consider moving over to the bank that I actually bank with. The same has happened with insurance, while being upsold a new decoder by someone who can't understand that a smart TV actually does the same work, is probably the ring that rules them all.