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Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

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Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#31

Post by bduerst »

542458 wrote: post #13

This is going to be awesome/terrible for social engineering attacks. We'll be training millions of people to to trust phone calls from "Google". But are you talking to Google-calling-on-behalf-of-your-boss, or Google-calling-on-behalf-of-some-phisher? Or better yet, some custom system that pretends to be Google over the phone? Who knows!

This isn't that different than all the bad actors calling from the "IRS". Educating people about giving personal details out over the phone has always been a challenge and will continue to be one.

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#32

Post by detaro »

politician wrote: post #26
whatever_dude wrote: post #9

Can't decide whether this is amazing or scary.

Just wait until a Google Duplex caller "on behalf of a client" calls to schedule a reservation at a restaurant using Google Duplex to answer the phones.

I wonder if they detect that and solve whatever task it is directly then.

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#34

Post by jonknee »

politician wrote: post #26
whatever_dude wrote: post #9

Can't decide whether this is amazing or scary.

Just wait until a Google Duplex caller "on behalf of a client" calls to schedule a reservation at a restaurant using Google Duplex to answer the phones.

The most inefficient API you could design!

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#35

Post by ocdtrekkie »

arikr wrote: post #23
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

Never have we had a more clear example of why Google needs to be regulated, and laws against what they're doing needs to be passed. The fact that they think it's okay to have bots pretending to be human making phone calls, shortly after demonstrating how quickly they can copy someone's voice (re: John Legend), it shows a blatant disregard for what they're creating.

I'm concerned that a lack of understanding and fear will limit the benefits we get from technology. I don't think that calling for regulation and making this illegal is the appropriate next step. They explicitly say: > We want to be clear about the intent of the call so businesses understand the context. You note: > laws against what they're doing needs to be passed. What makes you say that robots making phone calls…

I am far more afraid of technology we can't control that works for an ad company, not for us, than moving technology forward a little bit slower.

We need to be able to trust our communication, and we're moving away from that at light speed. Where a company whose entire business model is to subtly influence you in the directions profitable to them is the middleman in all of our communications.

I am terrified of this. I am not sure I've ever seen a presentation that terrified me more that wasn't out of a science fiction movie.

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#36

Post by jdietrich »

luckydata wrote: post #8
minimaxir wrote: post #2

> The system also sounds more natural thanks to the incorporation of speech disfluencies (e.g. “hmm”s and “uh”s). These are added when combining widely differing sound units in the concatenative TTS or adding synthetic waits, which allows the system to signal in a natural way that it is still processing. (This is what people often do when they are gathering their thoughts.) In user studies, we found that conversation…

It's not a new thing. A famous tax preparation software introduced a "compute" screen that took a few seconds to make people more comfortable with the results even if the computation itself is instantaneous.

It's really just an audio version of a loading bar or spinner - users get really uncomfortable if the UI becomes unresponsive for even a few hundred milliseconds, but they'll wait for several seconds if it looks like something is happening.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_noise

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#37

Post by gowld »

saulrh wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #2

> The system also sounds more natural thanks to the incorporation of speech disfluencies (e.g. “hmm”s and “uh”s). These are added when combining widely differing sound units in the concatenative TTS or adding synthetic waits, which allows the system to signal in a natural way that it is still processing. (This is what people often do when they are gathering their thoughts.) In user studies, we found that conversation…

I don't know if I'd call it a "deficiency" - if we interpret "disfluency" in a literal sense as "not flowing" without negative connotation, then the interruptions (hmm, uh, okay) are actually communicating useful information to the other party. I might even say that omitting those interruptions (and replacing them with, say, dead silence) might be poor communication.

The "um" isn't a deficiency, but the slow response is. If the response is artificially delayed to give the appearance of slow thinking, and an "um" added to fill the artificially long silence, that's an artificial deficiency.

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#38

Post by ansible »

sp527 wrote: post #22
ansible wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm very excited for a future where more and more tasks can be automated, enabling humans to get higher and higher living standards. That's been the dream for a long time in some circles. With the enormous productivity gains and ability to leverage external energy sources (fossil fuels, solar, etc.) we could have built a society of wealth and leisure for all. Maybe we will still. The hope is that if there is enough…

The technology promises "wealth and leisure for all". The capital owners promise "it'll trickle down". Technical utopianists need to start tempering their optimism with the realities of human nature and design systems accordingly.

I think our only realistic hope is actually various non-profit foundations and such.

When you think about it, I can download (for zero cost), a high-quality operating system and attendant applications which would have cost hundreds of dollars 20 years ago, and would have cost a fortune 40 years ago. Ditto for educational materials, entertainment, etc.

In that sense, we are quite wealthy in comparison to previous generations. If charitable organizations can leverage the automation of the future to help people, we might then see all humans across the planet lifted out of poverty.

But yeah, I don't expect corporations to do this. And it seems unlikely that most governments will either.

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#39

Post by gowld »

jdietrich wrote: post #36
luckydata wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a new thing. A famous tax preparation software introduced a "compute" screen that took a few seconds to make people more comfortable with the results even if the computation itself is instantaneous.

It's really just an audio version of a loading bar or spinner - users get really uncomfortable if the UI becomes unresponsive for even a few hundred milliseconds, but they'll wait for several seconds if it looks like something is happening. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_noise

People have learned that the spinner is non-progress, though. The progress bar still has some life in it, except that those are often fake, not measuring progress.

Re: Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone

#40

Post by kingnothing »

Google home's speech recognition can't even reliably turn my lights on and off every time, why would I trust it to book a restaurant reservation? I'd expect to tell it to book a 6pm table for 2 and wind up with an 8pm table for 10.
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