Abstract

The following study conceptualizes and evaluates a phone-based, natural-language-employing Automated Computer-Telephone Interviewing system. It will be argued that the conversational agent, by virtue of its technical limitations, is situated squarely within the interactional “uncanny valley,” precisely because it exhibits a rudimentary interactivity and can thereby mimic human agency. Its inability to be fully humanlike therefore becomes a peculiar interactive feature. The system is shown to take on the role of a highly restrictive interrogator rather than a regular interviewer, generating “institutional talk.” This is shown to be particularly true when users fail to recognize the system as nonhuman. The findings problematize the overall methodological robustness of state-of-the-art automated surveying agents, as such systems may unwittingly introduce response biases to a supposedly impersonal surveying method. Conceptually, the article will be grounded in Suchman’s “situated action” paradigm of human-computer interaction, as well as Heritage’s “institutional talk” within conversation analysis. This article will attempt to construct a theoretical scheme that will allow for a social study of the ACTI-based interaction. The findings are based on an analysis of 175 audio recordings of an automated survey on voting preferences during the 2013 Moscow Oblast gubernatorial elections.