DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
Only the second most terrifying story I’ve read today
I’m not defending Israel. I’m answering this guy’s question, like wHaT PrOxIeS??
You can straw man all you want, but not once have I defended Israel’s actions. Just because Israel is shit to gazans doesn’t mean that Iran is not also shit to Israel. Straw man.
If we want to have a legitimate conversation about morality then we start by agreeing on facts.
Trying to claim Iran did nothing wrong is not factual.
Iran does plenty wrong. Not to zionazis.
And not just because nothing is inexcusable when done rozionazi protocols LARPers
But because there’s an existential threat that always attacks first, multiple times,before Iran retaliates.
The Houthis and Hezbollah are the only people in the world with a spine to attempt some fight against the 21st century Nazis, Iran arming them is a moral thing. The Nazis weren’t defeated with nice words in the previous century, and they won’t be in this one either.