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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

#311

Post by fantispug »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #281
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…

That end game seems very wasteful and Rube Goldbergian. Why use an 1800s technology as the transport layer when salons, yoga studios, and more already use things like MindBody, which already has an appointments API? I’d honestly be way more interested if this integrated with MindBody, OpenTable, DMV websites, car dealer appointment systems, medical office scheduling systems — all of which already have APIs or at leas…

Because there are lots of businesses that don't have a booking API and don't see the need for one, or can't afford one. This kind of technology allows interaction with them, because it's easier to interact on a common transport protocol than to expect everyone to change to your preferred one. That being said I feel like it won't be long until this tech is used for scamming, phishing and pranks.

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

#312

Post by cosmic_ape »

sushirain wrote: post #226
cosmic_ape wrote: post #104

They have listed the problems with such systems in the first paragraph. They claim to overcome these by restricting to very specific domains. But specific domains are usually still wide. A table for two, but in the garden or inside? Inside on which floor? Sometimes it doesn't matter, sometimes it does, and these things are specific and different for every business. Really skeptical about this. And if this does become…

The bot can gather this restaurant specific information over several conversations with the restaurant. This wasn't possible before. This domain isn't too wide.

You are probably right that in principle one could eventually come up with a full catalog of features of a reservation. There would be about, say, 100 of those.

I seriously doubt that they will proceed to define and collect them, since those are probably 10% or less of all reservations, but lets say they would.

Then still, the conversation you make to make the reservation is a process in which you make the decision.

Say, there is a place inside at 20:00 or a place in the garden at 20:30. Are you going to let Google choose between the two options for you?

Do you imagine there would be an api in which you specify to the assistant, before it makes a call, your preferences in that much granularity?

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

#313

Post by MichaelGG »

jfv wrote: post #230

I feel like this is going to make the world even flakier than it already is. If I can waste people's time without even the few minutes it normally takes to make a phone call, what's to stop a restauranteur from effectively denial-of-service attacking competing restaurants, or what's to stop me from booking 100 dinners for Friday evening because I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to want to eat (or who I'm going to t…

What stops a restauranteur from abusing Google's Gmail service? Presumably Google won't allow you to do spam with Duplex either.

If you are going to be more enterprising then you can already do this. Just put some HITs on Mechanical Turk and let them place calls. Should cost you a few bucks to flood hundreds of calls.

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

#314

Post by marpstar »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #283
tlrobinson wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it could be very subtle and low bandwidth at first, and once both sides were convinced the other was a machine switch to a full speed screeching 56k modem [1]. Or just communicate "hey actually connect to this HTTP/XMPP/whatever address on the internet and we'll continue this from there" 1. Probably a bit slower, I've heard modern VoIP lines don't work well with traditional modems?

Damn that sounds even more dystopian, can you imaging it "Hello how can I help you? - Hi, beep, I like to reserve a table? - Ok, beep, beep, on second - Mhm-mm beep, beep, sceech, 011000101010...."

This is basically what 56k modems do, isn't it?

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

#315

Post by mywittyname »

tigershark wrote: post #291
Pfhreak wrote: post #176

A few observations: * In the example where Google asked about holiday hours -- they can now automate gathering information about businesses in bulk without having to rely on any APIs or user supplied info. Interesting thought experiment is Google validating their reviews/business listings by actually calling businesses and speaking to a real human. * This is going to be fantastic for accessibility. Maybe I struggle t…

I’m not sure what is a 4 star restaurant given that the Micheline guide gives maximum 3 stars, but pretty much all starred restaurants want a deposit when reserving. If seriously there was someone dumb enough to do something like this, booking and cancelling continuously restaurants, then probably everyone would require a deposit when reserving and the deposit would be much bigger than today.

> I’m not sure what is a 4 star restaurant given that the Micheline guide gives maximum 3 stars

It's the user rating from Google Maps users. They are represented as stars and you can filter based on them.

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

#316

Post by mywittyname »

dperfect wrote: post #99
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!

Sounds like we'll have to start solving voice captchas just to call businesses.

Click all the boxes in this picture that contain a sign.

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

#317

Post by xg15 »

floatrock wrote: post #179
justonepost wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that computers will now be interacting with people and people will become unsure of whether they are taking to a computer or a person. It will create a bewildering world full of mistrust. I would argue that there should be a law proclaiming that computers must identify themselves.

They're not unaware of this concern. From the article: > The Google Duplex technology is built to sound natural, to make the conversation experience comfortable. It’s important to us that users and businesses have a good experience with this service, and transparency is a key part of that. We want to be clear about the intent of the call so businesses understand the context. We’ll be experimenting with the right appr…

So they indicate that they are aware of the problem - and instead of doing a straight-forward "hey, I'm a bot", their suggested strategies are "being clear about the intent of the call" and "experiment with the right approach over the coming months"?

To me that quote sounds more like a polite way of saying they definitely won't reveal to callers that they are talking with a bot than them taking the concern seriously.

Some of the conversation examples on the blog page where they invent a sort of story for the caller ("I'm calling for a client") would fit that theory.

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

#318

Post by lgleason »

kingnothing wrote: post #40

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.

The Pixelbuds were supposed to be something similar, but did not live up to the hype....and I've experienced the same things with my home automation with Google Home, and don't get me started on using it so control Spotify etc..

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

#319

Post by hk__2 »

wyck wrote: post #252
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…

> People who answer phones to take bookings perform an extremely limited set of questions and responses, But that in itself is not even true across the industry, some(most) phone bookings are very complex, otherwise they would just use a web interface.

> But that in itself is not even true across the industry, some(most) phone bookings are very complex

Citation needed for that "(most)". I work for a company with a call center and a large part of calls are simple ones that could be easily answered by just reading the FAQ page on our website.

> otherwise they would just use a web interface.

I think the problem is more about resources. My local hairdresser use his phone and a notebook to take bookings. It takes a bit of his time and could easily be replaced by a Web interface but he doesn’t have any resource for that (and some people still prefer using their phones).

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

#320

Post by ada1981 »

This could be great for GOTV efforts and general canvassing.

Imagine a system designed in the voice of the candidate that can call you and answer most any questions you have about the platform (or log when you don’t have an answer to be updated later), remind you when to vote, send you a Facebook friend request, etc.

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