Bot Swarms · March 2019Gaffe level: Blunder
China's Robocallers Ace the Turing Test and Flunk the Vibe Check
Chinese telemarketing firms deployed AI voice bots so human-sounding that callers couldn't tell them apart, with one company claiming its bot had already made billions of calls. Billions. The do-not-call list never stood a chance.
Source: Sixth Tone
AI Avatars Translate Speech Into Kenyan Sign Language in Real Time
Kenyan engineer Elly Savatia built Terp360, an AI platform that translates speech into Kenyan Sign Language in real time using 3D avatars, with more than 2,300 signs recorded alongside deaf Kenyans. It won the 2025 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, and the team has released an open dataset of nearly 12,000 sign-language motion sequences.
Source: The Eastleigh Voice