AI Voice Answering Phone Calls Panics Iranians Abroad About Their Family Members

Israel-Iran Conflict: Entering its second week, as the Israel-Iran conflict intensifies, Iranians living abroad are facing a fresh challenge which is — An AI voice answering their calls home. Since Israel launched its offensive 'Operation Rising Lion' on Iran to roll back Iran's nuclear capacity, communicating with loved ones back home has almost become impossible for the Iranians residing abroad.

As the Iranian government has imposed a widespread internet and phone blackout in Iran, amid the conflicting nations launching waves of missiles at each other, desperate Iranian families abroad are left stranded.

Phoned Mother But Heard A Robotic Voice

A 44-year-old British-Iranian woman, Ellie, was taken aback while trying to contact her mother in Tehran. What she hoped to be her mother's voice was a robotic voice responding to her call in broken English. “Alo? Alo?...Who is calling?," said the voice as per reports. “I can’t heard you,” continued the voice.

Ellie however, is not alone, eight other people have said they heard strange robotic voices when they called their family and friends in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country. The reason behind this strange occurrence remains unclear as of now.

Deeply Eerie Sound Adds To The Moment Of Crisis 

The messages, as reported, are deeply disturbing for the Iranians residing abroad, especially when their families back in Iran are blocked from having any communication with the outside world.

Most voices spoke in English except one that took Frsi as an approach to deceive. Distressed Iranians abroad are now calling this a "psychological warfare" as the timing is bizarre.

The messages received on phone calls are like pre-recorded versions that repeat what is fed to the AI, irrespective of what one asks. Oddly, one of the messages also told the callers to imagine peaceful places like forests or seashores. This is when people are already panicking trying to contact their families.  

These voices are nowhere near calming for the callers, rather these are even more terrifying for them when they are disconnected from their families during a time of crisis.

What Could Be The Reason Behind It?

Mass voice and text messages were sent to Iranian phones warning citizens to prepare for emergencies at the start and since then, most internet services have shut down.

According to Iranian cybersecurity experts, the voices could be government tactics to prevent hacking or spread confusion because anybody other than the government cannot implement such a large-scale move, especially when the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology oversees Iran’s phone systems, and the country’s intelligence services are said to monitor conversations. However, some believe Israel could be behind it.

Amid this situation, Elon Musk has activated his Starlink internet service in Iran, and a limited number of people are believed to be using it. Allegedly, some Iranians are also relying on illegal satellite dishes to access international news.

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