Too Long; Didn't Read
I, like most people, am annoyed by telemarketers. But recently the problem has gotten so much worse due to the automation of scam calls. This was <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/18/544448670/episode-789-robocall-invasion" target="_blank">covered in detail by NPR’s Planet Money</a> and investigated extensively by Reply All in an amazing 2 part podcast (available below). The Planet Money piece shows that these robocalls are unlikely to end anytime soon, since the FTC is moving very slowly on the issue. Then, right in the middle of the piece, they played an ad for Google Cloud Platform and I got an idea. I could make a bot that would screen for unwanted calls and only let quality calls through. Like a digital personal assistant.