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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

#681

Post by buvanshak »

jacquesm wrote: post #87
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.

> I'd expect to tell it to book a 6pm table for 2 and wind up with an 8pm table for 10. That's a win, consider: It's the right restaurant, on the right date and 10 is larger than 2 so there'll be room enough. Ok, you have to wait two hours but given that this tiny place is normally so busy you have to book in advance what you lost in time waiting you will more than make up by the fact that you'll be the only people t…

There is something so wrong with this comment that all the problems with today's tech culture can be extrapolated from it...

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

#683

Post by lrondanini »

I'm actually surprise of how many people is impressed by this. I have been using google's assistant technology for a while now. It's amazing! I just wish they release the new voice ASAP! This is what you can do with it: https://vimeo.com/251603335

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

#684

Post by sp527 »

sp527 wrote: post #63
ansible wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting perspective. I share your pessimism about corporations and governments. But sadly I think government is the only institution with the necessary leverage (tax base, mandate, etc) to accomplish this. Non-profits are also fairly dubious in their motives, subject to corruption, and generally highly inefficient. I'm not sure they're going to be our saviors either.

Hmm this comment is getting downvoted, so I'll just reference the Red Cross fiasco as one good example of what I mean: https://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482020436/senators-report-fin....

If you haven't worked in the NGO space, you really don't understand just how bad it is.

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

#685

Post by rpeden »

luckydata wrote: post #393
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…

You gotta be kidding. If it was that easy why didn't you build it yourself? Easy billion right there.

Well, cromwellian works at Google, so maybe he did build it himself. :)

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

#687

Post by Notorious_BLT »

aurailious wrote: post #669
Drakim wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being is that it's a human speech API which is easier for humans to utilize "manually" if they don't have a robot servant.

I prefer not to call them servants, it would be better to start calling them partners actually, just in case we call them master some day.

Partner also just has a nicer feel to it. I don't like the idea of thinking of anyone/anything as a servant, but I do like the idea of someone/something assisting me.

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

#688

Post by sp527 »

bluGill wrote: post #187
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.

The living standards of the average person is much better than it was 200 years ago. 75% of the world has a cell phone. Yes the rich have it better, but the poor also have improved in ways that the rich of 200 years ago couldn't imagine.

I don't consider the present highly problematic, though it is imperfect.

The problem is the relatively imminent (next 50-100 years) reality of nearly complete human obsolescence. That's when you'll see societal degradation at previously unthinkable levels. And no that's not Luddite fallacy. The next epoch of technological innovation is going to be unlike any that came before.

A lot of people champion UBI, while forgetting that something like 3B+ people currently live on less than $2.50 a day. That's really all the evidence you need to know that the future is going to be pretty grim. Do we think it's more likely that plutocratic systems will award sustainable UBI packages to the mass unemployed via wealth transfer (which is anathema in said systems) or that market forces will discover the absolute minimum survivable income level and create new strata in first-world societies that hover just above pure barbarism?

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

#689

Post by mLuby »

politician wrote: post #10
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.

At the very least, there should be an requirement to identify when challenged. "Are you a bot?" "Yes, I am Google Duplex v1.2. This call is being recorded; you can see our privacy policy and terms of service at http://google.com/duplex."

Recording calls without both parties' knowledge can be illegal.
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