It will be decades before these synthetic personalities catch up with people in overall sophistication, but in some applications, people may prefer dealing with a synthetic person rather than a real one. On-line medical guides are a good example, where an expert system fronted by a synthetic doctor could give answers to simple medical queries, effectively an automated and greatly enhanced version of the flowcharts in home medical guides that we all use. Many other applications would benefit too. Of course, the internet also offer many user groups, allowing people to support each other directly. Whatever the problem, there is usually a special interest group representing it on the net.
People can chat with others in similar situations and many people find such interaction useful.
This will only substitute for a small number of call centre jobs though, and will comfortably exist in parallel. So the future of call centres looks secure. Workers will be humanised by future technology, not made redundant, unskilled instead of made obsolete. The only thing call centre staff should expect to disappear will be stressful working practices.