It's all well and good to discuss these AI systems as if they nearly existed and were practical but I know of no major utility or corporation that has an automated answering system that offers much of anything Beyond frustration and anger. Customers are carefully funneled into lengthy choices that often end up in pointless loops in careful avoidance of contact with any human intervention. I would add that while I admire work on robotics done in Japan, companies such as JVC and Panasonic can be nearly impossible to deal with (and let's not ignore power and cable companies in the US). "Watson" they are not! Email and phone numbers of executives often seem to be top secret to avoid inconvenient complaints by the public - with their revulsion expressed towards you openly should you happen to find a way thru the carefully designed communication barriers.
Intelligent robots? I think there's a l-o-n-g way to go on this topic. You're ready to cure cancer while I can't find out why my cable modem isn't delivering internet or what important changes were made to P2 (video) cards.
