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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

#691

Post by nickbauman »

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…

Small business do have email. I use email to do this kind of thing all the time and it works extremely well. I feel like this is a case of silicon valley solving marginal problems while the world burns.

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

#692

Post by sametmax »

stormbrew wrote: post #667
sametmax wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone calls are necessary for anything that needs flexibility. Coding flexibility in a website is incredibly hard. Think about it. A restaurant doesn't have anything veggie on the menu, a last minute guest arrives and is veggie. You call to ask if there is something that can be done. It's possible to code that, but it's a lot of work to get all the scenarios right.

I said transactional things, by which I mean things that don't require any special figuring for the vast majority of cases. In the case of a restaurant, having their menu online would make it so you knew in advance of the restaurant has something you can eat. Lots of restaurants still don't do even this.

A restaurant that doesn't do this is not going to setup a phone answering bot.

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

#693

Post by rojobuffalo »

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."

I think at the very least the bot should disclose that it is a bot right from the beginning.

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

#694

Post by bitL »

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…

Alright, let's do a small breakdown:

20% of all jobs will be lost to self-driving cars

25% of all jobs will be lost to automated customer support/marketing/non-direct human interaction

10% of all jobs will be lost to automating away all middlemen

5% of all jobs will be lost to automating away rudimentary programming

Now, who is going to win here?

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

#695

Post by mulletbum »

fixermark wrote: post #103
freehunter wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant, you could build a bot that calls. We have the technology already, and the people on the other end probably won't notice. Plus the "do it over the Internet" thing where screen scraping and scripting is super easy.

But could you build a bot that calls and is convincing enough to trick the target into actually accepting the request as genuine and reserving the timeslot?

It could most likely be done on any internet reservation system with little to no effort.

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

#696

Post by stormbrew »

sametmax wrote: post #692
stormbrew wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said transactional things, by which I mean things that don't require any special figuring for the vast majority of cases. In the case of a restaurant, having their menu online would make it so you knew in advance of the restaurant has something you can eat. Lots of restaurants still don't do even this.

A restaurant that doesn't do this is not going to setup a phone answering bot.

I... really think you're missing the thrust of what I'm saying here? Nowhere did I say I thought they would.

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

#697

Post by bo1024 »

wilsonnb wrote: post #673
bo1024 wrote: post #280

I think it's unethical for a robocaller to incorporate things like "ums" and "ahs" intentionally to deceive people into thinking they're talking to a human. At least, it's disrespectful.

I don't see any disrespect in lying about who you are in anonymous interactions. I'm under no obligation to be truthful. It doesn't matter to the restaurant if I book my reservation under a fake name. It doesn't matter if my assistant books it for me and they act like they're me. Software should be held to the same standard.

I agree about everything you wrote about anonymity. What bothers me is tricking someone into thinking they're having a human interaction with another person -- that the things they say will be heard and matter to somebody.

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

#698

Post by utopcell »

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 the extend that the primary application for this is call support, I don't agree with your proposal. This is supposed to close the gap between a tech-savvy group that would be using duplex and tech-handicapped small businesses. It is much easier / effective for a restaurant for example to hook up with open table than deploy something like business-duplex.

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

#699

Post by dredmorbius »

narrator wrote: post #140

Avi Ovadya among others has talked about a coming infopocalypse in which fake anything can be generated. Combined with data troves from Facebook or wherever they can simulate actual people to completely steal identities on a large scale and create a society disrupting mass hysteria to start a war or a mass panic. IMHO, to fix this everything needs two factor authentication generated by a biometric scan in person at a…

Agreed through the identifier bit. But the first part, yes.
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