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Google has demonstrated an AI assistant that can make phone calls on your behalf, speaking to the human on the other end of the line. The company showed off the capability by playing a recording of a phone call it claims was between its chatbot and a hair salon:
Onstage at I/O 2018, Google showed off a jaw-dropping new capability of Google Assistant: in the not too distant future, it's going to make phone calls on your behalf. CEO Sundar Pichai played back a phone call recording that he said was placed by the Assistant to a hair salon. The voice sounded incredibly natural; the person on the other end had no idea they were talking to a digital AI helper. Google Assistant even dropped in a super casual "mmhmmm" early in the conversation.
Pichai reiterated that this was a real call using Assistant and not some staged demo. "The amazing thing is that Assistant can actually understand the nuances of conversation," he said. "We've been working on this technology for many years. It's called Google Duplex."
There is already a debate about whether this is a good idea:
The selfishness of Google Duplex
Google's AI sounds like a human on the phone — should we be worried?
Google Duplex: Good or Evil?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 11 2018, @02:07PM (1 child)
I want an AI that's programmed to mess with telemarketers and other nuisance callers. I want one I can plant into their systems so that they're constantly calling themselves, and trying to sell each other vacation deals to Florida. I want one that will route all such calls to members of Congress and lobbying firms on K Street. I want one that will hide out on the smartphones of the elites and capture voice, video, and audio of their pecadillos and send them to their partners' divorce attorneys.
That is an AI future I can wrap my head around.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @04:18PM
https://web.archive.org/web/20171101181208/http://www.crosstalksolutions.com:80/howto-pwn-telemarketers-with-lenny/
Asterisk Telemarketer Torture
https://www.voip-info.org/asterisk-telemarketer-torture
Five great ways to annoy telemarketers with Asterisk
https://iomem.com/archives/10-Five-great-ways-to-annoy-telemarketers-with-Asterisk.html
Mango's way of blocking telemarketers with a PAP2T
https://web.archive.org/web/20170429072512/http://www.dslreports.com:80/forum/r21839925-Mango-s-way-of-blocking-telemarketers-with-a-PAP2T