Reply to post: Re: "If the AI detects that a machine is calling you and you don't want to speak to the machine ..."

Re: "If the AI detects that a machine is calling you and you don't want to speak to the machine ..."

"So that your phone can cut them off for you and you don't get distracted"

Except from the article:

"If the AI detects that a machine is calling you and you don't want to speak to the machine, the phone app could offer to hang up.

To allay fears, developers suggest the audio file and transcription will remain on the device."

It's not offering to filter out machine callers before you even know they've tried to call you, it's waiting for you to answer the call, then listen in and try to figure out if the voice on the other end is actually a machine, at which point it will pop up a notice asking if you want to press a button to end the call. Which, as the OP suggested, doesn't seem to add a whole lot over just pressing the "end call" button which is already there.

While cutting robocallers off before you know they're there sounds nice, I can't imagine any way for it to be physically possible. A call placed by a machine does not differ from any other call in any way. The only way it can ever be possible to know about it is to answer and see what happens. The only way an app on your phone could do what you suggest would be to have to answer every call for you and listen to see how confused the person on the other end gets. At which point their phone will detect that your phone is a machine and hang up on you before it gets a chance to do anything anyway.