This is a story about how the future gets weird. It's about how humans interact with each other, and machines, and systems that can only properly be called cyborg. Let's start, though, with a man ...

Sometimes, you have to think like a scammer. This query led me down a strange rabbit hole. And along the way, I discovered that Samantha West may be something even stranger than a telemarketing robot.

I’ve written before about how talking on the phone to a telemarketer or customer-service agent is often more like dealing with a computer than a human being. Even though the person on the other end is ...