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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

#371

Post by Tracist »

freyir wrote: post #310
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…

> 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. And looking even further into the future, we can imagine a day when the computers forgo natural speech and use a better-suited form of communication. Some kind of sequence of ones and zeros transmitted directly across the wire.

There are already apps/technologies that transmit information through audio at frequencies not audible to humans. It should be trivial to adapt this so that if two AI systems are interacting they can perform an "AI-handshake" in the audio at the start and then switch to a more efficient form of communication.

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

#372

Post by nradov »

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…

It's unfortunate that in 2018 we still have to resort to klugey work arounds like this with so many restaurants and hair salons instead of being able to make reservations online. There are services like OpenTable but even here in Silicon Valley only a small minority of restaurants use them. It seems like there's a huge opportunity if someone can crack the market.

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

#373

Post by icantdrive55 »

ansible wrote: post #38
sp527 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gene…

1. And 501c3's will take care of the rest?

Nonprofits are not a magical entities. I have found most very self-serving. Self-serving the founders whims, and "pockets".

Hell even the great Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation give so little back to the womb (America) that cultured/encouraged his money making career. It's almost like the wealthy hate their family?

We saw how Bush's Thousand Points of Light went. Humans are selfish. And the lack of spirituality is just making them more so.

2. At this point, I'm just seeing so many jobs being lost to people who don't expect much (yes--there are people who don't think much about putting six people in a 10 x 12 room), and jobs lost to technology.

3. I only see two ways out, and most of you won't like it.

A. Tax the wealthy more.

During and after WW2 we were taxing Them at 90%, and they didn't complain. It takes the fear of death to lessen the drip on their wad?

B. Tie all Fees/fines to income.

We're all in this mess together.

I don't see a rosy future. I just see more homeless.

The wealthy realized they don't need their family (America). They have the world to sell, and exploit to.

I got off track, but don't see nonprofits curing our problems.

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

#374

Post by SilasX »

sumeno wrote: post #95
SilasX wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hope it never gets one of the 9 out of 10 humans who don't repeat back important information to prevent miscommunication...

How does that differ from a human having the same conversation? If I call a restaurant and say "Can I have a reservation for 6 at 8:00" and they write down a reservation for 8 at 6:00 without repeating it back I won't know until I show up at 8:00 with my 5 friends.

True -- I was mainly snarking about people with poor communication practices, not the technology (which seems great -- a godsend for people like me who hate phone communication).

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

#376

Post by qooleot »

StavrosK wrote: post #342
ecwilson wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god that sounds awful. One of the reviews has all the spoilers. It's truly stupid.

Yeah, it was pretty badly written and rather simplistic. Not recommended, you're probably better off reading the spoilered review.

Are you sure it wasn't Google's AI that wrote it?

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

#377

Post by davemel37 »

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…

> Most people working in hair salons or restaurants are very busy with customers and don’t want to handle these calls, so I think the reverse of this duplex system, a more natural voice booking system for small businesses would help the immensely free up their workers to focus on customers.

I think this perspective is very short sighted. You will lose customers to automation, but businesses wont turn away customers because of automation.

Customers and prospects don't want to interact with machines, but businesses should be willing to give customers what they want.

The idea that a tool can be rolled out to millions of consumers, even with limited use cases and not have to get adoption from businesses to be useful is IMHO a much bigger opportunity and much better use case than rolling out a tool to businesses that make the interaction less personal.

Customers need to trust businesses, business only need to collect money from customers.

I think everyone who focuses on chatbots from the business use case perspective is missing the bigger opportunity.

A technology that can give a consumer access to ALL businesses, not just the ones who adopt a new technology offers much more utility than serving businesses or the shortsighted use cases like saving time and money for the business.

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

#378

Post by nixme »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #324
batuhanicoz wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of deposits for reservations for a restaurant. And I've at least once made a reservation for restaurant with a Micheline star. I'm not sure if this is common practice at least in Europe. I'm sure it's unheard-of in Turkey (and I've been lucky enough to make reservations for some high end and/or very popular restaurants). May I ask in which countries you've experienced this in? I'm genuinely curious.

I travel all over the Us (Texas, NYC, and Cali mostly) and I've literally never had to put down any kind of deposit or anything of the sort when making dinner reservations, and I frequently make reservations at plenty of nice, upscale places.

Many high-end restaurants in NY, CA, Berlin, Copenhagen, etc. require a deposit. See Tock (all prepaid, https://www.exploretock.com) or Resy (some prepaid, some cancellation fee, https://resy.com).

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

#379

Post by insensible »

econ101isSexist wrote: post #366
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…

Dude, this system has better conversation skills than me. I mean literally. Well, I'am autistic + esl (+ kinda too why). But still it's kinda incredible that a system is actually better.

Yes, that first restaurant reservation would have taken me several times as long to complete.

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

#380

Post by ZainRiz »

davemel37 wrote: post #377
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…

> Most people working in hair salons or restaurants are very busy with customers and don’t want to handle these calls, so I think the reverse of this duplex system, a more natural voice booking system for small businesses would help the immensely free up their workers to focus on customers. I think this perspective is very short sighted. You will lose customers to automation, but businesses wont turn away customers b…

Uh...businesses have been automating phone calls for decades now
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