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posted by mrpg on Friday June 29 2018, @05:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the ohoh dept.

Google Duplex really works and testing begins this summer

In a restaurant in Mountain View, California yesterday, Google gave several small groups of journalists a chance to demo Duplex. If you don't recall, Duplex is the AI system designed to make human-sounding voice calls on your behalf so as to automate things like booking restaurant tables and hair appointments. In the demo, we saw what it would be like for a restaurant to receive a phone call — and in fact each of us in turn took a call from Duplex as it tried to book a reservation.

The briefings were in service of the news that Google is about to begin limited testing "in the coming weeks." If you're hoping that means you'll be able to try it yourself, sorry: Google is starting with "a set of trusted tester users," according to Nick Fox, VP of product and design for the Google Assistant. It will also be limited to businesses that Google has partnered with rather than any old restaurant.

The rollout will be phased, in other words. First up will be calls about holiday hours, then restaurant reservations will come later this summer, and then finally hair cut appointments will be last. Those are the only three domains that Google has trained Duplex on.

The demos we saw had many of the same elements that made the original demonstration at Google IO so impressive: the voice sounded much more human than normal, complete with ums and ahhs. It also featured something we didn't hear last May: each call started with an explicit statement that the call was being recorded. There were a few variations on the disclosure, but they all included some indication that you were talking to a machine and the call was being recorded. For example, one call began with "Hi, I'm calling to make a reservation. I'm Google's automated booking service, so I'll record the call. Uh, can I book a table for Sunday the first?"

Also at Ars Technica.

Previously: Google Duplex: an AI that Can Make Phone Calls on Your Behalf


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @06:10AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @06:10AM (#700142)

    So google wants to collect voice samples and tie them to identities?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @06:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @06:43AM (#700149)
  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 29 2018, @11:32PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday June 29 2018, @11:32PM (#700441) Homepage

    Exactly. I pointed out in the previous related discussion that ditzy valley-girl was effective against a real ditzy valley-girl. Also, if it can pre-emptively detect that the caller on the other-end is an ESL (English as a Secondary Language) speaker, then it can more safely use a personality more unlike the person at the receiving end.

    They're using the ol' salesman trick - emulate the mannerisms, vocabulary, and sentence-structure of the person you are trying to persuade. This is a subtle and insidious method of flattery when direct flattery triggers your mark's defense mechanisms. If this were a real-life robot, it would be clicking a pen everytime it saw you smile, then click that pen everytime it wanted to convince you to enter into that beneficial partnership, or have sex with you, or something.

    Do not fall for Jewgle's bullshit. Should you suspect the person on the other end is a Google bot, then state out of nowhere that Sergei Brin is a womanizing Jew. The limitations of their so-called "AI" will soon become clear, because that AI was programmed by humans who believe in political correctness. That is their weakness. That is how you catch them off-guard.