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Comment by babyshake | Hacker News Reader

I don't even try to stop the scams anymore for the most part. I just assume that anything incoming is a scam until I am able to verify it. It is kind of crazy making, but maybe not as crazy making as trying to stop the flood.

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My phone hasn't rung with a scam call since I enabled Google assistant call screening. Unknown callers have to explain why they're calling

What's in it for Google?

They can sell more Pixel phones.

Yeah. I ragequit Android when they went back on photo storage promises but wowza I did not think that Apple would be so bad at handling spam. Unless they get their act together I am ragequitting the Apple ecosystem back to Android for my next phone.

Isn’t that more of a carrier thing?

The phone changed but the carrier and phone number didn't. Pixel's robocall screening was evidently like that meme with the soldier blocking the arrows.

For me spam is at the bottom of the list of things Apple can't handle.

People buying their phone?

Oh. Is that also why they continue to remove features that I use?

The answer to this question is probably also yes, regardless of how orthogonal it is to the previous question.

Knowing every inbound call made to that number and collecting ML training data.

It decreases user availability to non-Google advertising vectors. I would also assume that if Google can figure out who's trying to sell what to you, they can use that to better funnel ads your way on their own platform.

It's part of Googles strategy for adding human-level AI to Google Assistant and Android.

See the restaurant reservation demo from Google IO 2018.

Curious if this has worked where a valid caller with a valid reason made it through the screen and how you could catch false positives. Sounds like a great idea if it works so that's why I am asking.

At least so far there don't seem to be any false positives, but it does seem like something that could easily be botted.

I think if they say anything, it rings and shows a transcript of what they said. At least, that's what happened the few times I've received a legitimate call from an unknown number (think calls like a contractor or a doctor's office).

Isn't this feature only available in Pixel phones?

Someone has figured out how to break it. I have it enabled yet I still receive one call a week from a Chinese speaking robo caller. Everyone I know gets these calls, some daily on their cell phones. Must be a very profitable product they're selling to afford making 600 calls to reach one person who understands Mandarin.

Those calls threaten their Mandarin-speaking target that US Immigration services are going to kick them out of the country. But the scammers (who might be dressed up as immigration lawyers) will take care of the problem in exchange for a bunch of money.

Been using this for what seems like years. Initially Google Asst screening would throw some legit callers off base, but I haven't had a false-positive or scam calls for years. Google Asst also manages the call when put on-hold. Would be more fun if it could emulate Its Lenny

Tmobile and others have some ot-in feature that prevent most of the scam calls from getting to your phone. I went from a couple a day to a couple a week after turning it on.

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