I'd love to ban all robocalls, including those from doctors, dentists, etc. But this might hurt the feelings of robots who can pass Turing tests, if there are any.
Instead, I propose a half-baked scheme to harness the powers of unethical marketing and lazy customer relations for the advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
The law should state that no telephone calls can be made by an entity that can't pass a Turing test (i.e., convince the other side that they are an actual human being). With that constraint, any call should be allowed to anyone NOT on the Do Not Call list. There should also be a universal hotkey (such as #42) to report non-compliant entities, resulting in a serious-ish ($500 - $5000) fine for the company, and a non-sentient nuisance compensation reward for the callee.
This would be complicated to monitor and enforce, of course, since the gov't would have to either listen to the calls for the hotkey combo or install a recorder at participating companies to referee non-compliance reports.
This will also result in some human operators who stick robotically to some marketing script being classified as sentience violators, hopefully resulting in better training.
I believe this is my most half-baked idea yet--fishbone away!-- cowtamer, Apr 01 2010 Chinese Room http://plato.stanfo...tries/chinese-room/ [mouseposture, Apr 02 2010] //human operators who stick robotically to some marketing script being classified as sentience violators// News flash! Chinese room fails Turing test!-- mouseposture, Apr 01 2010 "Chinese room"?-- WcW, Apr 02 2010 [WcW] "Sentient human operator who sticks robotically to a script designed to make him *appear* to be sentient" seemed like a reinvention of John Searle's "Chinese room" thought experiment <link> which is supposed to prove the impossibility of true artificial intelligence. Searle's argument requires that the human operator pass the Turing test.-- mouseposture, Apr 02 2010 What about Turing telephone answering machines, so the computers can chat to each other?-- pocmloc, Apr 02 2010 #42 is spoken for. I can say nothing more.-- bungston, Apr 02 2010 I like the Turing answering machine idea in an of itself. The situation reminds me of Neal Stephenson's concept of "Artificial Inanity" in Anathem-- cowtamer, Apr 04 2010 random, halfbakery