Brainstorming
Phone-Phobia App
The software should basically work like this:
- User can record a message and a phone-number to send it to.
- When user decides they are done recording, they press "send".
- Software dials the number, and uses some kind of AI thing <waves hands> to recognize when a human has picked up the line.
- (maybe this could be just the user listening in and pressing a button when they hear someone answer)
- The software play a pre-packaged recording explaining that it's relaying a voice message (perhaps identifying the user, so it doesn't sound too much like spam), please press '1' to hear the message.
- After message plays, the recording says you can press '1' to hear the message again, or '2' to respond.
- software lets the user know when the message has been played and when there's a response ready.
So basically it would let you conduct a phone conversation via voicemail.
Heck, there could even be an option to do text-to-voice if voice dysphoria is a thing -- choose the type of voice you want to use... but even without that, it could alleviate dysphoria by letting you practice what you're saying until you're ok with how it sounds.
The main hurdle will probably be social acceptance -- getting people to actually listen to the message instead of just hanging up. Perhaps there could be a standard form-letter to mail ahead of time, saying "I have phone phobia and have tried to reach you via other methods, which haven't worked, so I'll be using my voice-relay software to contact you via phone; please don't hang up when it announces itself! Thanks."