Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by deepGem » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #481

pbw wrote: post #411

This is really horrifying to me. My heart goes out to the working-class retail people who are going to have to spend their days chatting with the AI assistants of upper middle class people too busy to call themselves. If the shop owner gets a duplex system to field the calls, then the two robots can subtly signal to the other they aren't actually human, and then start shrieking like a 9600 baud modem to finish the di…

As someone who worked in tech support early in their career, I do not. The entire process of fielding calls is terrible. You never know what's waiting for you when you pick up the phone. Could be someone with a terrible attitude that wants to take it out on you. I had coworkers who got PTSD, and a ringing phone would trigger it. I would rather talk to a rational robot on the phone than a possibly irate human who, fra…

As someone who worked very closely with tech support and sometimes fielded calls, I echo this. It's batshit insane to field support calls, L1 especially. Honestly, no human deserves the wrath of support calls. You get yelled at for no apparent reason and all you can do is be patient. Who knows what the psychological consequences are. I have seen customer support people lose their temper in otherwise normal situations.

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

#552

Post by tmsldd » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

pbw wrote: post #411

This is really horrifying to me. My heart goes out to the working-class retail people who are going to have to spend their days chatting with the AI assistants of upper middle class people too busy to call themselves. If the shop owner gets a duplex system to field the calls, then the two robots can subtly signal to the other they aren't actually human, and then start shrieking like a 9600 baud modem to finish the di…

Well, that will be until the shop owners install AI assistants to reply customers calls, then we’ll have robots talking to robopts using human language, which would make the whole idea nonsense...

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

#553

Post by bsder » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:08 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #372

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.

> There are services like OpenTable but even here in Silicon Valley only a small minority of restaurants use them.

OpenTable takes a cut, no? That always going to limit availability.

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

#554

Post by bsder » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:11 AM UTC

pbw wrote: post #411

This is really horrifying to me. My heart goes out to the working-class retail people who are going to have to spend their days chatting with the AI assistants of upper middle class people too busy to call themselves. If the shop owner gets a duplex system to field the calls, then the two robots can subtly signal to the other they aren't actually human, and then start shrieking like a 9600 baud modem to finish the di…

The problem is that I don't want more voice; I want less voice and more automation.

I don't want to have to interact with a human because the only time a company makes me interact with a human is when they think it benefits them (upsell, make leaving difficult, etc.).

What I want are good ways for me to handle this stuff via computer without human interaction.

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

#555

Post by nopinsight » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:16 AM UTC

Currently there are about 3 million people working in call centers in the US alone and millions more in other countries [1].

Given the technological trajectory, over time there will be less need for people who serve purely as the ‘interface’ using minimal skills and knowledge. At the same time, we still need many more people to work in the physical world: cooking nutritious meals, construction, and caring for the elderly are some examples.

Since we cannot assume that everyone can develop skills needed to thrive in demanding technical or knowledge-based jobs, a key priority in many countries should be supporting certain segments of the population to develop the skills and attitude necessary to work in these physical jobs: Most of which are too complex for AI and robotics to effectively replace in the next few decades.

In addition, vocational education should be improved and updated to make use of appropriate technology to increase productivity and reduce physical demand on the body.

[1] https://info.siteselectiongroup.com/blog/how-big-is-the-us-c...

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

#556

Post by Lorkki » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:30 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #525

nyanotech wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the lack of a universal API. This sort of thing is exactly why the healthcare industry still uses faxes, even going electronic charts -> pdf -> fax -> pdf -> electronic charts in some cases.

Healthcare uses faxes mostly because HIPAA rules particular to format and security of electronic communications don't apply to faxes; it's a compliance hack.

That sounds a bit too juicy to be true. Any citations?

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

#557

Post by bambax » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:33 AM UTC

Google itself (Google Search) is extremely wary of being used by "bots" and uses string of captchas to screen them out. But search is just a machine.

That Google would create bots to talk to real people is horrifying. This is only possible if Google doesn't in fact think of working people answering the phone, as really human.

This is like doing war with drones instead of soldiers. This may sound over the top, but bear with me.

The implicit contract in war is that soldiers are legally authorized to kill because they are risking their own life. Killing people at a distance without risking anyone's life on the side of the shooters, breaks that "contract", is fundamentally unfair and fuels terrorism, because terrorism is the only possible answer.

Making a telephone call rests on the same convention: you are allowed to make someone spend time on the phone with you, because you're spending your own time.

But if one side is a robot that has no costs, then the relationship loses balance and becomes unsustainable (and this is the reason why Google bans bots on its own servers). This is one more step breaking society, again.

The only answer is to either stop accepting phone reservations, or put captchas on the other side.

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

#558

Post by FatalBaboon » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:34 AM UTC

indemnity wrote: post #486

salehhamadeh wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And $20,000 to get someone who knows how to install such a system to do the job.

What is installed when using a SaaS solution?

Well there is initial setup at the very least. Hooking up whatever landline the client has with the SaaS solution.

Then whenever a significant change is required, you need to call back your "expert". New location? xk$, etc.

But I think the biggest concern is that suddently the owner does not understand how his reversation system works. He used to be able to call Joe and know what's going on...

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

#559

Post by mxfh » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

pbw wrote: post #411

This is really horrifying to me. My heart goes out to the working-class retail people who are going to have to spend their days chatting with the AI assistants of upper middle class people too busy to call themselves. If the shop owner gets a duplex system to field the calls, then the two robots can subtly signal to the other they aren't actually human, and then start shrieking like a 9600 baud modem to finish the di…

Was thinking about that too. Even humans could start developing their personalized own shorthand lingo, think cattle auctions, ATC, or other narrow topic applications, that don't need formalites emphasize on less ambiguity, speed and confirmation. Could easily speed up Computer to human calls a very significant amount.

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

#560

Post by zeta0134 » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:36 AM UTC

nyanotech wrote: post #516

ZainRiz wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, but if you think about it, what stops businesses from doing this today? It's the lack of a universal API. If a barber shop wants to make it possible for a 3rd party app to book appointments then they have to release some API. But that's not the end of it. The 3rd party app has to first discover their Api, someone has to understand it and write code to use it, and then deploy that code. This is a problem today be…

> It's the lack of a universal API. This sort of thing is exactly why the healthcare industry still uses faxes, even going electronic charts -> pdf -> fax -> pdf -> electronic charts in some cases.

This is even more fun because in the modern age, what very often ends up happening is:

electronic charts -> pdf -> fax -> fax machine as a service -> unsecured email -> pdf -> electronic charts

Compliance can sometimes help, but ultimately the data needs to flow, and people will do whatever it takes to make that happen. Until security is so easy that it's the default, these little loopholes will continue to be abused.