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With Google buying Boston Dynamics -- maker of some hella terrifying robo-dogs (and -dudes) -- and Ford unleashing a robo Mustang Sally (in the form of a self-driving prototype vehicle), it seems to be the week of the robot.

So here's yet another robo-item for your weekend enlightenment. This one's from a few days back, but it's too good to let pass (and besides, you may've missed it the first time around).

It seems Time magazine's Washington bureau chief, Michael Scherer, got a phone call from a telemarketer who almost sounded like a real person. Almost. The pauses and inflection were just a little bit, um, robotic.

So Scherer asked, and the, um, person laughed it off. And the fun began (with other Time reporters joining in).

Check it out. Really, it's way more amusing than Siri. But it also gives you pause. Are we actually this close to some sort of Stepford Wives and Westworld-ish dystopia? "Ha ha. What? No. This is a utopia." Yes, but it would just make me feel so much better if you said the words, This is not a dystopia. "What? Ha ha. Yes, this is a utopia...." Etc. (You can read Time's full report on the episode here).

Update, December 18 at 10:03 a.m. PT: Time published a follow-up story several days after its first take. Citing a rep for the company behind the mysterious voice, the story says, "the American telemarketing robot who denies she is a robot...functions much like a remote-controlled car, directly operated by a real person working in a call center outside the United States." You can read the piece in full here.