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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

#701

Post by glitch003 »

Mizza wrote: post #358
saagarjha wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how most people I know would make a reservation…

Exactly, and you're from California. You see this as normal. I'm from England. What Californians see as normal, or casual , or "chill", I think we see as being rude. I think this is extends in personal interactions, professional interactions and customer/company relations like this one. I imagine that if I used this service to place an order to a restaurant, it would order with the Californian "cannIgettuhh", which I…

> which I would be scalded for as a child.

I really hope this is a typo and you meant "scolded"

scald: to burn or affect painfully with or as if with hot liquid or steam.

scold: to find fault with angrily; chide; reprimand:

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

#702

Post by ZainRiz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #640
ZainRiz wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, in the WeChat model, everyone is tied to WeChat and can't go around it. This voice based model can be integrated into any existing system. It already has the network effect going for it and it's not tied to the fate of any one company

No, you just become tied to Google. You can't reimplement Duplex yourself without reimplementing both their API and their voice recognition verbatim, and the best way to do that is to simply use their product.

Not necessarily. Given the rate of progress in AI and the number of companies working on it, it's only a matter of time until Duplex-like tech is reimplemented by other large corps like Amazon and Microsoft, and eventually it'll could even be implemented by startups if there is a decent business case for it

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

#703

Post by ben_w »

danShumway wrote: post #671
uryga wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said it's easy to implement :) I'm curious - what differences do you have in mind?

APIs map to a single canonical concept. A "class" in Java actually has a correct definition. There are a nontrivial number of philosophers who believe that this isn't true for language. To simplify that and put it in more technical terms, an API is perscriptive and a language is descriptive . If a bunch of coders decide to start capitalizing "Class" their code won't compile. If enough people start using the word "ain…

Just to add a fun example to demonstrate your point, the original name for Esperanto wasn’t “Esperanto”, it was (translated) “the international language”. It was given the nickname “Esperanto” after the chosen name of the creator, and the word itself it supposed to mean “one who hopes”.

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

#704

Post by ZainRiz »

smadge wrote: post #507
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…

In a sense you are correct, but remember that Duplex only works because it is limited to a very strict well specified domain: scheduling for restaraunts and hair salons. That is, Duplex only works because there already is a de facto specification for these transactions. It requires a lot less effort overall to just formally specify this de facto standard and deploy it once and for all, but of course a top down approa…

You first need "ye old barber shop" and "big corp barber shop" to all agree on what this common API should be. That's the old standards proliferation problem https://xkcd.com/927/

Which is what makes it very hard to define a new common API

However, they all already agree on the standard for natural language communication (in the context of a strict, well defined domain). That's the pre-existing common API which Duplex is using

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

#705

Post by ZainRiz »

siva_ss wrote: post #607
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…

"This is a problem today because there is no universal Api that all services can use" "It's the lack of a universal API." I disagree with that. We already have universal APIS. Adopting a newly established Universal Api is far more painful and has slower adoption rate than using the existing-globally-reached one like a telephone. Google duplex like systems addresses a broader scope of computer verbal communication and…

What's a universal API that everyone agrees on?

It's the old Standards Proliferation problem: https://xkcd.com/927/

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

#706

Post by lorenzorhoades »

utopcell wrote: post #698
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.

Exactly. If a small business doesn't use open table or duplex, no problem - I can just use duplex to schedule the reservation for me. Open table requires buy in from the restaurant, duplex doesn't.

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

#707

Post by ZainRiz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #634
ZainRiz wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As crazy as it seems at first glance, a double Duplex system would be a really beneficial result. What stops businesses from setting up Apis from scheduling services 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…

No, it doesn't. The problem of universal API is entirely orthogonal to voice communications . Duplex is not a Turnig-complete system, it's just an API behind a voice recognition layer. All the important problems for universal APIs happen after that layer. Ultimately, what you describe can work perfectly only when everyone is using Duplex, which is equivalent to everyone using Google-defined API. That's not universal,…

Everyone doesn't have to use Duplex, everyone would have to use a system that allows it to seem like a human is talking to the other person, provided you limit the context to a particular domain (like taking reservations).

This system could be developed by any company with sufficiently advanced ML chops

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

#709

Post by utopcell »

I'm curious to see how this plays out. This assistant has a limited set of voices. Imagine an employee receiving reservation requests at a restaurant, being called up dozens of times on the same day, with the same voice, for dozens of different reservations.

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

#710

Post by politician »

nfoz wrote: post #480
politician wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

There's no way I should be bound by terms of service that are secret unless I know the "code-phrase" with which to ask for it. Google's whole point was to deceive the user into thinking it isn't a bot -- so you wouldn't even know to ask it. People will be forced to "discover" that they've been lied to, when the bot is caught in a loop and they're going through emotional distress thinking the "person" on the other end…

It's illegal in many states to record a conversation without obtaining consent which is something this product does as a matter of course. This product shouldn't be legal to operate in those states, so you don't have to look very far before finding critical flaws in this approach.

That said, "identify on challenge" is something that Google might be more likely to adopt rather than "identify on call pickup". The latter being something they might spend more lobbyist dollars to oppose.

But what you've said is certainly (or should be) a real concern.

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