UPDATE: AI service ended on Christmas Day 2023, leaving a pre-recorded message only.

It has become a yearly tradition at Telstra, it would seem, to offer free calls to Santa from payphones around the festive season by dialling #464646 or “#HOHOHO”). Last year, I analysed the service for the first time, finding it had a relatively simplistic phone-tree IVR system. I also took recordings of the service for preservation as part of the effort and found out the actual telephone number used for the service. It may surprise you to hear that the old 2022 Santa is still alive on the network.

But this year, 2023 Santa is a whole new beast, quite literally. In many ways, it addresses many of the (minor) criticisms I had of the inflexibility of the service offered in the previous year and incorporates some more clarity about privacy and data usage. Welcome to the Santa powered by generative AI and a large language model!

A New Santa is Born

Apparently, the #HOHOHO service started early on 10th November this year, but I must have missed the announcement. It wasn’t only until I walked past this payphone on my way to work that I was reminded of the event.

It has a very welcoming sign, encouraging passers by to phone Santa.

As usual, the LCD matrix displays are also joining in on the act.

So far, it would seem nothing special, until you call and interact with the line. Then you will understand the depth and breadth this Santa has.

Telstra hasn’t kept any of this a big secret … in fact, on 22nd November, they let us know all about the generative AI that powers the system.

“Together with fullstop.ai and OMD, Santa will now use tech built on Google Cloud’s Dialogflow CX and the PaLM 2 large language model (LLM) to answer everyone’s calls.”

[…]

“With the custom voice model and tech from the Google Cloud team, Santa is now able to respond dynamically and in real-time – something that wasn’t possible before generative AI.

We’ve even made sure Santa can cater to kids with different, more neurodiverse needs. If he asks a question and doesn’t get an answer straight away, he’ll allow them to take the time they need to get their question out.”

Perhaps, more impressively, is the fact that they clearly address the privacy and ethical concerns with this statement:

“While the calls themselves will be transcribed in real-time to make sure that the AI program is working correctly, they will be deleted after a week to help avoid any privacy concerns. All of our payphones will also carry a message on their screen and an introduction message from one of his elves saying that calls to Santa’s workshop are monitored for quality control, so everyone knows this before they dial the number.

We’re also taking extra steps with this to make sure that Santa’s generative AI is helping to give children the right answers to their questions, and only on the topic of Christmas.

That’s why the large language model “frozen” That means Santa’s LLM isn’t being “taught” based on any of the calls made to the North Pole.

We’ve worked with the elves to test the hotline to make sure that it’s suitable for kids and adults alike at all times. And we’ve built it in line with the AI Ethics Principles, which we played a critical role in developing with the Australian Government to ensure AI is used responsibly.”

That’s definitely good to know – and I can verify that the payphone screen does display:

“Calls to Santa’s Workshop are monitored for quality control”

Where does the 2023 Santa live?

As I have no chance to stand by a payphone all day and I’d love to play more with the system, I decided to go hunting for the location of 2023 Santa. The first time, I was woefully unequipped, cupping my mobile phone’s microphone to the earpiece and only extracting the upper tones of the DTMF pairs.

I came back the next day armed with my magnetic pick-up and PCM recorder to determine the DTMF digits being dialled onto the line, like last year.

The recording suffered from mediocre SNR and background mains hum. Most DTMF decoders couldn’t make heads or tails of it … but your eyes can. Stare for a bit and you’ll be able to tell that 2023 Santa lives at (in E.164 format):

+61 3 4513 5044

Geographically, this would be a Victorian-based number, but based on listening to calls, I believe it to terminate into a VoIP gateway anyway, so the actual location is not necessarily as per the number.

A Santa Call (or maybe 30)

Disclaimer: Please note, these calls were conducted and recorded in the interests of researching and documenting this innovative, generative AI-based system and its capabilities. In the process, various names and trademarks have been used as part of this test. These remain the property of their respective holders. The calls and generated voice are not making any representations regarding the products or people referenced, of which any resemblance may be purely coincidental.

Unfortunately, this year marked the loss of all my VoIP services, so I’m basically down to using a mobile phone to place the calls and perform recordings. The AMR compression does mean a small loss in fidelity, as will the AAC-LC audio compression, but it’s still better than trying to do it at a payphone. I did opt to use 3G/UMTS connection for more stable audio timings – something that may be going away mid-2024. Apologies for the inconsistent file naming – I didn’t have the time to fix everything up.

Here is an example of a silent call to the #HOHOHO number – w