Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

ai.googleblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 786 posts

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

#161

Post by Svenskunganka »

punnerud wrote: post #148
cromwellian wrote: post #128

The people losing their marbles over this being some kind of Turing Test passing distopian stuff are missing the point at how limited this domain is. People who answer phones to take bookings perform an extremely limited set of questions and responses, that’s why they can even be replaced by dumb voice response systems in many cases. In these cases, the human being answering the phone is themselves acting like a bot…

To save CPU/GPU/TPU there should be a high-frequency sound, as in people can’t hear, so the computers talking to each other and switch to a faster way to communicate. If this is included you also have way to detect if you are talking to a bot/duplex.

Doesn't most carriers heavily "compress" the sound, removing all sounds/frequencies that a human can't hear, etc? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2A8q3XIhu0

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

#162

Post by marnett »

arikr wrote: post #5

This is amazing! I'm very excited for a future where more and more tasks can be automated, enabling humans to get higher and higher living standards with the same/fewer input resources. In short, technology is a wonderful thing that allows very low marginal costs. This is what we need to make the future a better place, given a consistent or growing population. "Technology is miraculous because it allows us to do more…

What past productivity improvements and/or economic developments have ever pointed to your fantasy being realized? How will thousands of workers in the Philippines and India losing their call center jobs result in "higher and higher living standards?"

I'm sorry but given historical context and popular capitalist intent, this future you speak of is simply fantastical. The working class would sooner be made extinct before a Jetsons-esque future of leisure for all came to fruition.

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

#163

Post by alonmower »

empath75 wrote: post #147
cromwellian wrote: post #128

The people losing their marbles over this being some kind of Turing Test passing distopian stuff are missing the point at how limited this domain is. People who answer phones to take bookings perform an extremely limited set of questions and responses, that’s why they can even be replaced by dumb voice response systems in many cases. In these cases, the human being answering the phone is themselves acting like a bot…

I love how no matter how amazing something is, someone will eventually say it's trivial, even though it's taken the smartest people on earth decades to figure out how to do this. >The end game would be for the business to run something like duplex on the other side, and you’d have duplex talking to duplex. The end game is clearly to use an api, not this.

Ya, I agree that an API is the right solution but the benefit of this is that both sides aren't forced to adopt it at the same time, it's more resilient to changes on either side...

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

#164

Post by cromwellian »

empath75 wrote: post #147
cromwellian wrote: post #128

The people losing their marbles over this being some kind of Turing Test passing distopian stuff are missing the point at how limited this domain is. People who answer phones to take bookings perform an extremely limited set of questions and responses, that’s why they can even be replaced by dumb voice response systems in many cases. In these cases, the human being answering the phone is themselves acting like a bot…

I love how no matter how amazing something is, someone will eventually say it's trivial, even though it's taken the smartest people on earth decades to figure out how to do this. >The end game would be for the business to run something like duplex on the other side, and you’d have duplex talking to duplex. The end game is clearly to use an api, not this.

Where did I say it’s trivial? What I’m saying is, people ar anthropomorphizing and extrapolating what this system is doing far above what it is actually doing, and then using it to justify fears that Skynet’s around the corner.

This system can’t pass the Turing test, it would be fooled probably by a simple question about itself or a subject outside the domain, like the kind of food you like.

You’ve got people in this thread hyperventilating about AI duping your voice and the. Becoming a doppelgänger and therefore we need laws immediately to stop this dystopia? Let’s calm your cortisol levels for a second and stop acting like Thanos just got the last gem.

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

#165

Post by CryptoPunk »

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.

Average income and wealth has massively increased over the last century, so we are slowly but surely getting to that utopia. But it happens at a pace that is too slow to be experientially perceptible.

I would add however that there does appear to be some barrier limiting the ability of ordinary people to accumulate financial capital, and I attribute that to friction/fixed-costs imposed by regulations.

New services, like Robinhood, and technology, like cryptocurrency, could address this, and allow wider participation in capital markets.

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

#166

Post by mithr »

This is amazing, but one thing I don't really understand is this: earlier in the presentation, they demoed some new Google Assistant voices. All of them sound like standard computer-synthesized assistants. On the other hand, the synthesized Duplex voices sound indistinguishable from human speech to me, even without the "disfluencies" they include.

If Google has gotten speech synthesis to this point, why isn't Assistant synthesizing speech of this quality?

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

#167

Post by carapace »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #35
arikr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

You're not alone. This is deeply creepy, wrapped in candy floss.

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

#168

Post by jokh »

politician wrote: post #41
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!

Credit card companies have already solved this problem by publishing a well-known 1-800 number that their customers can call back to verify the intent of an unexpected caller. Google Duplex can do the same thing - without even staffing a call center.

I don't understand what you mean, can you elaborate? Who calls the 1-800 number, and what info do they get from the call?

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

#169

Post by ngold »

punnerud wrote: post #148
cromwellian wrote: post #128

The people losing their marbles over this being some kind of Turing Test passing distopian stuff are missing the point at how limited this domain is. People who answer phones to take bookings perform an extremely limited set of questions and responses, that’s why they can even be replaced by dumb voice response systems in many cases. In these cases, the human being answering the phone is themselves acting like a bot…

To save CPU/GPU/TPU there should be a high-frequency sound, as in people can’t hear, so the computers talking to each other and switch to a faster way to communicate. If this is included you also have way to detect if you are talking to a bot/duplex.

I like this. So basically the old school modem sound, but in frequency that can't be heard. It would only take a fraction of a second to send out the feeler, and would not be noticed if a live human picked up. Could even detect a human and send the call over to a live representative without anyone noticing.

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

#170

Post by monkeynotes »

All this is great, and I am sure Google will use the tech responsibly, but I feel we are rapidly approaching a point where humans can no longer use their senses to discern critical truths about our own reality.

I honestly don't know how that's going to pan out. Just imagining it already makes me feel the kind of paranoia creep you get when you are too high.

Post reply on HN