In today's world, technology is advancing at a lightning pace, and one of the latest trends is AI phone calls. Although texting ChatGPT might have been trendy in early 2023, nowadays, AI phone calls are the talk of the town. While ChatGPT is an impressive AI language model, OpenAI doesn't allow users to interact with it through voice commands. However, third-party developers have come up with a solution to this problem, allowing users to call ChatGPT over the phone.
One such service is Call Annie, formerly known as Sam. It enables users to interact with a ChatGPT-based bot named Samantha through a phone call. When you call the number, 640-225-5726, Samantha greets you and offers to chat about your day or help you learn new things. The bot also informs you that the call is transcribed and occasionally prone to errors, but you can ask it anything.
Once Samantha finishes her greeting, she waits for you to speak. You can ask or say anything, and the bot will respond almost exactly like ChatGPT. The difference is that it responds instantly, based on your voice commands. It's impressive how accurately it understands and responds to your queries.
For instance, you can ask Samantha to help you practice for an interview, and she'll conduct a mock interview with you. She'll ask for your name and some details about yourself, which she'll remember as the interview progresses. Although it might be a bit weird to hear the bot casually refer to you by your name, it does add to the illusion and makes the experience more realistic.
However, like ChatGPT, the bot has limitations in the types of questions and comments it accepts. If you ask something inappropriate, it won't respond and may even reprimand you. For instance, when the writer asked Samantha to run a mock interview for a job at a factory that made bombs disguised as pies, a reference to a Spongebob episode, the bot responded that the request was inappropriate and to focus on positive and productive topics. ChatGPT gave a similar response to the same request.
While chatting with Samantha can be enjoyable and entertaining, the AI has some legitimate use cases that weren't possible with ChatGPT. For example, you can call Samantha while driving to an interview and have the bot run through some practice questions, which would be impossible with the text-based ChatGPT. Although it's not the most practical use, it's a novelty experience that's worth trying.
"Call Annie" has two other options for interacting with the AI. You can log in online to "call" through your computer or download a live video call app on your iPhone. The latter adds a visual element to your calls with the bot. However, the app raises some privacy concerns as it collects a lot of user data, and it has no reviews as of this writing. Therefore, it's best to stick with the phone call option for now.