Now You Can Call ChatGPT on the Phone

ChatGPT can do a lot, but we haven't reached Hollywood-levels of AI just yet. OpenAI doesn't let you ask ChatGPT questions with your voice, and it won't respond in kind, at least not without a browser extension. But, as it turns out, you can pick up the phone and give ChatGPT a call, thanks to the work from a third-party developer.

Call Annie (formerly known as Sam) is a service that lets you chat with a ChatGPT-based bot over the phone, named, um, Samantha. It's a little confusing. The developer seems to have switched some of its branding to Annie, even thought the bot still calls itself Samantha when you call.

Whatever name the bot goes by tomorrow, it's pretty impressive. When I call the number, 640-225-5726, this is the greeting that plays each time:

Hello, this is Samantha. We can chat about your day, or I can help you learn new things. You can skip this message, see service terms and options by signing up on callsam.ai. Also, this call is transcribed and sometimes I might be wrong, but you can ask me anything.

The line then goes quiet as Samantha waits for you to speak. Now, the ball's in your court: You can say or ask anything, and the bot will respond almost exactly as ChatGPT does. The difference here, however, is it goes off your voice, and answers instantly in kind. It's impressive how accurate it is.

For example, you can ask Samantha to run through a mock interview with you before heading into the real deal yourself. She'll ask your name and a little about yourself, and will remember those details as you conduct the interview. It's a little weird to have the bot casually refer to you by your name as it asks you a question, but it does help a bit with the illusion.

That said, like ChatGPT, the bot has firm boundaries in which questions and comments it will accept. If you try to ask something the AI doesn't want to answer, it won't, and may even chastise you for the comment. I tried to make my mock interview for a job at a factory that made bombs disguised as pies, a reference to the excellent Spongebob episode, "Dying for Pie." Samantha basically told me that my request wasn't funny, and to grow up. For reference, ChatGPT gave me a similar response:

I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot fulfill that request as it is inappropriate and goes against OpenAI's mission of creating safe and beneficial AI for all. It is important to recognize the potential harm and ethical considerations associated with promoting and normalizing violence. Let's focus on more positive and productive topics.

As long as your requests are to code, you might have a good time chatting with Samantha, replacing any conversations you'd typically have with ChatGPT with the voice-generated bot. For the most part, it'll be a novel experience more than a practical one, but there are some legitimate use cases here that weren't possible with ChatGPT. You really could give the bot a call in the car on the way to your interview to run through questions, something you obviously can't (or shouldn't) do with the text-based ChatGPT.

"Call Annie" has two other options for interacting with its AI: You can sign in online to "call" through your computer, or you can download a live video call app on your iPhone, which purports to add a visual element to your calls with the bot. That said, I'm wary about the app, since its iOS privacy report shows it collects a lot of user data, and it has no reviews as of this article. For now, it might be best to just stick with the phone call.