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Shell Game: Quality Assurance

31 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the concept of voice cloning introduced in this episode?

0.031 - 19.947 Unknown

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-iHeart.

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20.602 - 24.228 Evan Ratliff

Hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what?

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24.368 - 27.973 Jonas Brothers (Nick, Joe, and Kevin)

We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas.

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28.354 - 31.879 Evan Ratliff

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

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31.899 - 37.167 Yanis Maurer

We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

37.448 - 52.673 Evan Ratliff

Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but you know. Tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, we help make you funnier.

52.914 - 65.79 Evan Ratliff

On this episode, my guests Bob Odenkirk and Kids in the Halls Bruce McCullough try and help the Kazoo Kid and Tazon Day be famous again. What if there's an alternate universe show where you guys are incredibly popular?

66.131 - 72.459 Jonas Brothers (Nick, Joe, and Kevin)

Well, and they could travel up the land doing meet and greets. They're constantly needed at malls.

72.959 - 78.807 Evan Ratliff

Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Chapter 2: How did Evan Ratliff create his voice clone?

622.162 - 657.157 Evan Ratliff

episode one quality assurance the very early basic voice agent version of me the one that i inflicted on customer service lines was always polite maybe a little formal if there's anything else you need from me to help clarify the situation Please let me know. Just a moment. Take your time. I understand these things can take a moment to sort out. Thank you for checking on this for me.

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658.258 - 679.623 Evan Ratliff

It was also very confident. When I was first messing around with it, I didn't give it much information to go on. That would come later. But if it didn't know something, like why it was calling customer service at all or some identifying information it needed, it just made it up on the spot. I'm not a new customer. I'm actually calling about an existing service issue. My zip code is 90210. 90210.

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682.047 - 703.198 Evan Ratliff

With nothing else to go on, my agent had just grabbed the world's most famous zip code, or at least 1990s famous, and assigned me to it. The words, I don't know that did not seem to be in its vocabulary. I'm having some issues with my internet service at home. It's been really slow for the past few days. And I've tried restarting the modem, but it hasn't helped. Can you assist me with this?

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703.938 - 706.444 Evan Ratliff

These unrecognized charges are quite concerning to me.

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711.175 - 714.623 Unknown

I'm sorry, there are charges that you do not recognize?

718.433 - 743.099 Evan Ratliff

Thank you for understanding. It's quite distressing to see charges on my account that I can't account for. The confirmation number is ABC 12,345, as in the letters ABC followed by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. No dollar sign or comma involved. It wasn't terribly creative with fake addresses and account numbers. The zip code associated with the billing address on the card is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

744.2 - 753.325 Christy (Customer Service Representative)

Perfect. Oh. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for the zip code.

753.345 - 768.286 Evan Ratliff

No, sorry. The last four digits of the card number are 1,234, but the zip code associated with the billing address is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. My account number is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. The name on the account is Evan Smith.

772.151 - 773.753 Christy (Customer Service Representative)

We don't have an account with those numbers.

Chapter 3: What challenges did Evan face while using his voice clone for customer service calls?

1468.556 - 1486.535 Evan Ratliff

Thanks for taking my call. Hi, Ethan. Thanks for taking my call. Hey there. How can I help you today? Hello. I have to pay to use it, but there's really no limitation on what I can set my agents up to say or who I call. All that is on me. Just to put this in perspective, if you want to do this with humans, you need a room full of them.

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1487.216 - 1504.002 Evan Ratliff

Usually all at little cubicles, each wearing a headset, dialing their own phone, and having their own conversation. With Vappy and these other services, someone could just press a button and let the voice agents have unlimited conversations. When they're done, you get a recording and a transcript of each one.

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1503.982 - 1524.559 Evan Ratliff

In fact, it's call centers and other phone-happy businesses that these platforms are really made for, not individual people like me. Software developers can use them to set up large-scale systems for making sales calls or taking inbound customer service questions. But that's not to say individual people weren't trying and making whatever kind of voice agent they came up with.

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1525.481 - 1535.245 Evan Ratliff

This was the Eastern Edge of the Wild West. Imagine waking up one morning and realizing AI assistants have already taken care of your daily tasks.

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1535.265 - 1551.724 Yanis Maurer

Guys, I built an AI for property management. An AI voice bot which allows property managers to have a receptionist that works 24-7. And the crazy thing is that I gave it my own voice, I trained it on my own knowledge, and I built the entire thing without writing a single line of code.

1551.704 - 1568.853 Evan Ratliff

At the end of this video, you will know exactly on how you can create voice assistants that can literally initiate calls from multiple numbers. And if you don't know who I am, my name is Yanis Maurer. These were my people, Yanis and the boys. I followed them onto YouTube to learn the ropes and then went deep into the trenches on Discord to fine-tune my systems.

1569.554 - 1582.556 Evan Ratliff

We shared an obsession with optimizing the parameters to make our voice agents maximally realistic, given the current technology. And no parameter is more top of mind for every self-respecting voice jockey than latency.

1583.998 - 1584.298 Unknown

Hello.

1589.165 - 1610.518 Evan Ratliff

Hello, sir. Hello. Yeah, I'm still here. Hi. Latency is the measure of how long it takes for the AI to process what someone says and respond to it. The longer the latency, the more awkward pauses and less realistic your agent sounds. Us quick-witted humans converse at around 200 to 500 milliseconds of latency between responses.

Chapter 4: What ethical considerations arise from using AI voice agents?

2144.739 - 2147.826 Evan Ratliff

I haven't noticed anything strange. Maybe it's just the call quality.

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2148.187 - 2154.06 Unknown

Feel free to share your thoughts on what you feel like doing based on your current bodily sensations.

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2154.513 - 2169.156 Evan Ratliff

Honestly, I just feel like crawling under a blanket and shutting out the world. I was just reminiscing about our coffee catch up. Good times, right? By the way, are you still interested in doing that podcast about AI we talked about? I'll tell you something new.

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2169.176 - 2173.703 Jonas Brothers (Nick, Joe, and Kevin)

There's a robot trying to have a conversation with me. You robot, Evan.

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2178.239 - 2197.058 Evan Ratliff

A couple of production notes. All of the calls you hear in this series are real. We have not cut out silences or used audio enhancement to make them sound more realistic. Also, our show is produced independently and we have no relationship, financial or otherwise, with any of the companies mentioned in the show. Actually, we have no financial relationship with anyone.

2197.038 - 2215.182 Evan Ratliff

This show's production budget comes directly out of my bank account. So if you're into what you're hearing, please consider supporting the show at shellgame.co. That will help us make more episodes like this. You'll also get fun subscriber-only extras. You can also support the show by giving us a rating on your podcast app. It helps independent shows like ours.

2215.162 - 2230.862 Evan Ratliff

Shell Game is a show made by humans. It's written and hosted by me, Evan Ratliff. Produced and edited by Sophie Bridges. Samantha Hennig is our executive producer. Show art by Devin Manny. Our theme song is Me and My Shadow, arranged and performed by Katie Martucci and Devin Yesberger.

2231.583 - 2265.012 Evan Ratliff

Special thanks to Hannes Brown, Mangesh Hatigadur, Ali Kazemi, Juliet King, John Mualem, Eric Newsom, and Dana Ruder. Hey Sam, it's Evan. Hey, it's Evan. Doesn't sound like you, Evan. Hey, Sam. It's me, Evan. That sounded more like you. Hey, it's really me. Hey, Sam. It's me, Evan. Yeah, it's me. What's up? Hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

2265.032 - 2265.313 Yanis Maurer

I'm Joe.

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