Alibaba's chatbot will answer spam calls for you… but does it work?

Husky is a chatbot that aims to waste a telemarketer’s time

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“Transfer harassment calls to your bot and let it handle everything,” the poster says. (Picture: Alipay)

Published: 8:33pm, 29 Mar 2019Updated: 9:00am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

“Do you need a loan?” When you pick up the phone and hear someone say that, you usually hang up.

But Alibaba thinks it has a better idea: A bot that will chat with cold callers so you don't have to deal with them, and waste their time by prolonging conversations.

(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)

It comes right after China’s 2019 consumer day TV show, which named and shamed companies for bad practices. This year, one of the most discussed cases is about companies using bots to make spam calls. One popular machine costs just 3,000 yuan (US$446.91) and can make 5,000 calls a day. Another company claimed that they made more than 4 billion calls a year, according to state-run broadcaster CCTV.

In a voice recording circulating online, a female telemarketer tried to sell the Alibaba bot a bank loan program. (In fairness, the telemarketer might have been a bot too!) The Alibaba bot, named Husky, asked what bank she’s representing and what the interest rate is, and kept the conversation going for over 1 minute by saying that he’s interested.

One Weibo user said, “I hope the two bots fall in love soon.”