Scott Duke Kominers, Columnist

Robots Can Save Us From Phone Scammers

Soon, technology will let mobile phones use call-screening bots to hold off the scam bots.

October 15, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC

Scott Duke Kominers is the MBA Class of 1960 Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a faculty affiliate of the Harvard University department of economics.

Sure, I can answer the phone.
Photographer: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

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These days it seems that virtually every phone call is either spam or a scam -- someone is trying to sell you a cheap credit card, Lasik eye surgery or land someplace you can’t find on a map. And you don’t even get the pleasure of real human interaction -- the call comes from a robot,2 who only puts a person on the line once you’ve signaled you’re an easy mark.

Of course there’s a National Do Not Call Registry, but the investigators who operate it can’t keep up with the scale of robocalling -- and scammers aren’t worried about breaking the law anyway.