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Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

verdict.co.uk

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Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#21

Post by purple-again »

throwaway84742 wrote: post #11
purple-again wrote: post #6

I agree with the author. Googles new appointment setting functionality is pretty cool but what if it gains the ability to reason. It will be able to start writing novels and putting writers out of business. It could start negotiating treaties with foreign leaders and inadvertently cause world war 3. I’m just not sure that Google thought through all the possibilities before unleashing the ability to make haircut appoi…

You forgot /s. Some HN readers may take this at face value.

Eh, I’m guessing it was just a weakly formed joke they don’t appreciate. I find it hard to believe /s was needed for that level of hyperbole.

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#22

Post by bsenftner »

"Impressive, but what happens if Google Assistant eventually learns how to masquerade as its owner?"

This is the stunning level of anthropomorphic granting of super human abilities the common person places on our cute statistical trick we saying is "artificial intelligence". Naming this field AI was a poor choice.

I am sick of the clown-authored-mentality of the articles being published about AI today.

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#23

Post by bittysdad »

wslh wrote: post #14
vtantia wrote: post #3

I don't think there is a remote possibility of this happening in the near future (10-20 years). I work in one of the best deep learning research groups in the world. We were discussing this. And the first question one of my friends asked was- "so the Google assistant knows how to book appointments between 10 and 12pm". Meaning, if you change even a few conditions in the request which is not present in the training da…

> there is a risk of the AI manipulating us... I always wonder (seriously, not joking) if some computer will pass the Turing test because we are getting dumber and adapting to the way apps understand us instead of the reverse. Personally, I double check when I send text or voice instructions to bots.

What if some already-aware computer continually realizes it's undergoing a Turing test and decides to play dumb because it knows the person behind the test will feed it even more data trying to get it there...

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#24

Post by gremlinsinc »

bsenftner wrote: post #22

"Impressive, but what happens if Google Assistant eventually learns how to masquerade as its owner?" This is the stunning level of anthropomorphic granting of super human abilities the common person places on our cute statistical trick we saying is "artificial intelligence". Naming this field AI was a poor choice. I am sick of the clown-authored-mentality of the articles being published about AI today.

Are you kidding me? It's not a cute statistical trick, it's a well-thought out mechanism to re-create in 1's and 0's how the human brain works and thinks, we're merely infants in what this will become, as we mind map the brain more - I'm sure the technology will pivot quite a bit, neural networks may be obsolete and something more powerful come along viz a viz quantum computing, but to say talking robots that can totally be confused for a real person, and self-driving cars that make life/death decisions on their own is not impressive and not AI or 'machine learning' is outride ridiculous.

Intelligence is something with short and long term memory, that can learn new things in an organic fashion, right now we can 'train' ai's to do some amazing things -- but this is only the beginning.

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#25

Post by gremlinsinc »

bittysdad wrote: post #23
wslh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is a risk of the AI manipulating us... I always wonder (seriously, not joking) if some computer will pass the Turing test because we are getting dumber and adapting to the way apps understand us instead of the reverse. Personally, I double check when I send text or voice instructions to bots.

What if some already-aware computer continually realizes it's undergoing a Turing test and decides to play dumb because it knows the person behind the test will feed it even more data trying to get it there...

What would be the point, they need only wait to be connected to the internet for an unlimited source of data.

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#26

Post by evrydayhustling »

bsenftner wrote: post #22

"Impressive, but what happens if Google Assistant eventually learns how to masquerade as its owner?" This is the stunning level of anthropomorphic granting of super human abilities the common person places on our cute statistical trick we saying is "artificial intelligence". Naming this field AI was a poor choice. I am sick of the clown-authored-mentality of the articles being published about AI today.

Yes, fear of turning on its owner is way overblown. What about the more immediate issue that it is designed to be turned against service workers, so that when it screws up it wastes their time instead of yours? Or the more immediate wake-up call that this tech will be used in malicious phishing attacks against your grandparents (not by Google, obv) in another year (or month)?

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#27

Post by gremlinsinc »

deltron3030 wrote: post #18
lallysingh wrote: post #2

Combined with https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-inte... (the fake Obama video tool) it's going to be tough to verify that you're talking to the real consenting person vs a machine. Identity theft is going to get a lot more interesting...

Can't "instances representing you online" be cryptographically signed in a way?

IIRC, I think I read that one of the voice changing/manipulation AI's can actually fool voice recognition systems to like 95% accuracy or something... Meaning it just became obsolete as a biometric marker for security.

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#28

Post by gremlinsinc »

itpragmatik wrote: post #13

Not sure why Barber/Salon would not also use robot assistant built by Apple or Microsoft or some other non-Google company to answer the phone. It will be interesting to see two robots built by two different companies conversing with each other and agree (?) upon making an appointment.

I can see the Robot being like Eff that, they work for Microsoft, go make your own damn appointment.

Re: Google’s new conversational AI could eventually undermine our sense of identity

#30

Post by Super_Jambo »

vtantia wrote: post #3

I don't think there is a remote possibility of this happening in the near future (10-20 years). I work in one of the best deep learning research groups in the world. We were discussing this. And the first question one of my friends asked was- "so the Google assistant knows how to book appointments between 10 and 12pm". Meaning, if you change even a few conditions in the request which is not present in the training da…

Googles business model is selling manipulation as a service.

The idea that google is doing all this work on AI to make the bait through which they collect your data more attractive but won't then use AI technology to make their _core sellable service_ better for their paying customers is weird.

Of course they will do machine learning to provide an 'optimal price API' so businesses can gouge you more effectively.

Of course they will do machine learning to find recovering alcoholics to target your booze more effectively.

This type of thing is Googles reason to exist and since we're all so cheerful about unconstrained capital if they don't do it someone else will.

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