Google's Duplex AI could kill the call center
Google is reportedly shopping its Duplex AI system around as a tool for call centers, according to The Information, including a large insurance company.
Duplex would handle simple calls for the insurance company, and if the customer started asking complex questions the bot can't handle a human would step in, according to the report. However, it's unlikely that AI research will cease after mastering simple conversations, meaning call centers could one day be largely automated using this technology.
[...] Update: A Google spokesperson reiterated that Duplex is only being tested as a consumer technology for now, and that the company isn't testing it for enterprise. The entire statement is below:
We're currently focused on consumer use cases for the Duplex technology and we aren't testing Duplex with any enterprise clients. As we shared last week, Duplex is designed to operate in very specific use cases, and currently we're focused on testing with restaurant reservations, hair salon booking, and holiday hours with a limited set of trusted testers. It's important that we get the experience right and we're taking a slow and measured approach as we incorporate learnings and feedback from our tests.
Previously: Google Duplex: an AI that Can Make Phone Calls on Your Behalf
Google Starts "Limited Testing" of Google Duplex AI System
Related Stories
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?
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
(Score: 2) by idiot_king on Sunday July 08 2018, @02:51PM (34 children)
The endgame of capitalism is to get rid of people - it always was, it always will be. Replacement or subjugation - what's the difference to the people at the top? If you can't see that's where all this AI stuff is heading, then you're probably one of the ones going to be swallowed by it. This is precisely why we need a public understand of the dangers of capitalism now more than ever before it swallows the entire working class.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @03:27PM (24 children)
Google is the inevitable end result of Free Software. Without Richard Stallman, without the Free Software movement, without GNU/Linux, there would be no Google.
Ever since day one of the GNU Project, Richard Stallman has made no secret about the fact that Free Software would impoverish the working class. It's happening now. We are in the endgame where all the wealth produced by the labor of Free Software programmers is accumulated in the hands of a few billionaires.
Richard Stallman told you explicitly this day would come and he would see to it. You were too stupid to take his manifesto seriously.
If you don't like being subjugated by the capitalist class, well then maybe you shouldn't have followed the teachings of a communist who told you to give away all your labor for free. The same Free Software which you gave to the capitalists is the same Free Software that will show you advertising as you starve to death.
Don't like living in the future created by Free Software? In the words of Richard Stallman, "tough on you." Don't like starving? In the words of Richard Stallman, "do something else."
Richard Stallman has the answer, for him. He destroyed the value of software, so he doesn't do software anymore. He retired to a life of motivational speaking to anyone young enough and naive enough to follow him. Most of us cannot manage to get any money for motivational speaking. We do something else, like starving to death.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 08 2018, @03:37PM (21 children)
Where's the -1 misinformed shill mod?
Maybe - just maybe - if you meant the BSD license, when you refer to "free software", you might have a point. That license allows you to take, and to give nothing back. Of course, you didn't mean the BSD license, because Stallman doesn't lobby for the BSD license.
Without the GPL and it's fellow free licenses, just about all of us who are not professional programmers would be at the mercy of Microsoft, Apple, Sun, SCO, IBM, and assorted lower life forms. Most free licenses permit anyone at all to take, but they really like you to give something back. They don't demand that you give anything back, but they make it pretty clear that you should do so. The GPL covers that with the bit about distributing stuff covered by the GPL. If you distribute your altered code, then you have to also make available the source. If you don't distribute your code, then you need not make any source available. That's pretty simple.
Or, to phrase it differently: With BSD, you can close software anytime you like. With GPL, you can't close it, unless it stays within your own shop. The moment it leaves your shop, you are required by law to make the source available.
TANSTAAFL, remember? There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. You don't take free code, and call it your own.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:09PM (12 children)
The GNU Manifesto (1985) predates the BSD license (1988). You are ignorant of the history of Free Software, you are splitting hairs by distinguishing between open source licenses, and you are seeking to confuse the issue by launching into a tangent about the irrelevant differences between open source licenses.
The fact remains that Richard Stallman deliberately started a communist movement to undermine the working class by eliminating the value of their work. Since the widespread success of Free Software, the customary way in which programmers produce value is by publishing source code on GitHub where corporations like Google take the source code and use it for free without paying. Programming has become a volunteer activity done by the poor which immensely benefits the rich.
Richard Stallman wrote his vision for the future in which programmers toil for free to produce software by night and work retail jobs by day to make ends meet. You cannot dispute this point because the GNU Manifesto explicitly states it.
Richard Stallman sold the poor to the rich, and then he retired. He is the architect of poverty, and his future has come true.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:45PM (11 children)
So, uhhhhmmmm, what you are saying is that there are no coding jobs that pay? Or, are you merely saying that there are no coding jobs that pay what they are worth?
I probably don't have enough information to argue the second. But, I'll point out that H1B's drive those wages down, more than any choice between licenses. But, you go ahead and blame Stallman and Google for the fact that you can't make the money you wish you could make. Maybe you should have gone for an MBA, then you could rape the world for the money you think you deserve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @05:09PM (10 children)
Wages are not driven down by Free Software; jobs are eliminated entirely. When corporations like Google can exploit the free labor of the young and the naive (perhaps you have heard of Summer Of Code?) for as long as possible then corporations can enrich themselves by not paying wages at all. When coders realize they are being scammed, there are no jobs to be had.
Congratulations on spinning off to another tangent, this time about H-1Bs. Your powers of deflecting blame are strong.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:00PM (9 children)
Ho-hum. Summer of code. Intern work. I guess you're not aware that people have been working as interns and apprentices for thousands of years. They work for nothing, or nearly nothing, in exchange for mentoring and experience. Apprentices have often worked for some set number of years, for room and board, and access to the tools of the trade.
Do Summer of Code participants enter into the agreement willingly? Well - duhhh - I think they actually compete for the opportunity. Do those participants have advanced degrees or something, that makes them especially valuable? I don't think so - they are mostly inexperienced plebes.
Spin things however you like, but you'll have a hard time convincing most sane people that open source has damaged the economy, or that it has prevented you from getting a job.
Multiple companies have built businesses based on supporting open source operating systems. The OS is free, but the savvy to keep it all running smoothly costs. You need something special, they put it together. But, according to you, none of them can exist, and no one can make any money with open-sourced software.
You really ought to reconsider your position.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:28PM (5 children)
It's more like all he cares about is money, and at no point do freedom or ethics come into it for him. Thus, this person would be happy with a world where all software violates users' freedoms, because he thinks he could make more money that way. Of course, the ends (money) don't justify the means (denying users their freedoms), even if you assume you can't make money with Free Software, which happens to be false.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:01PM (4 children)
Read this excerpt of the GNU Manifesto, please.
Now, please tell the class how gifting Free Software to corporations like Google is a step toward the postscarcity world? What is your next step, after cutting the expenses of billionaires? Explain how the Free Software movement has not simply taken from the poor and given to the rich?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 09 2018, @12:09AM
It is not gifted exclusively to corporation like Google, it is also gifted to you.
As regarding to your question, please tell us how gifting Free Software to everyone is impeding the post-scarcity world? That's what you blame Stallman of, am I wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @12:10AM
The Free Software movement is about user freedoms. If that happens to result in programmers making less money, that sacrifice is worth it. What's your alternative? A world where all software denies users their freedoms and is controlled entirely by the developers? No thanks. We have something close to that right now, and it's a disaster.
Rather than just attacking the concept of Free Software, tell me what your alternative is. I'm waiting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @01:17AM
Different AC. Our economy is jiggered in many ways to aid the rich in becoming richer as the poor become poorer. We built the Autobahn, but you're not allowed to walk on it. You need a car. We designed the Volkswagen as the car for the common person, but the desperately poor couldn't afford even a Volkswagen.
Free software is like that. It doesn't cost anything, but you need a computer to use it. The common person, even some of the desperately poor, can afford a personal computer. With free software, a person can read e-mail, browse and design the WWW, work with business documents, make music, draw, chat or play games. The free software to do those things often comes at no cost. Charities that provide computers to the poor can do so without paying for software--and without the busywork of licence management. We had a city, Munich, that made a policy of using free and open-source software wherever it could. Munich saved #11 million. They had to train their users on the new software, but they were able to avoid hardware upgrades because the free and open-source software was less demanding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @04:03AM
That one's easy. It's gifted to everyone. The rich can take it and do as they please. The poor can take it and do as they please.
...and it turns out that the opposite of what you say has come true -- millions of dollars of paid programming go into Free Software, several projects started by literal nobodies, and ordinary people on the street can download and use it for zero cost (which isn't technically the aim, but all it takes is one person to share it around, and it's all above-ground and legal).
Providing high-quality software to the public and lowering barriers to entrepreneurship for individuals and smaller entities is what Free Software has actually done.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:52PM (2 children)
The economy is doing splendidly. Capitalist billionaires are raking in the money, since the Free Software movement has reduced their software expenses to nothing. Except the working people at the bottom are doing terribly because they don't get paid for work. There's no economic reason for Google to pay any of the volunteers who made Linux. Google can just take Linux and put it in every Android phone and Linux developers don't get a dime.
I am quite well aware of internships and apprentiships. What you are neglecting to consider is that internships and apprenticeships traditionally lead to employment. Where the Free Software movement is concerned, there is no need for employment to occur. Once the software has been written for free, the coder who wrote it has no remaining value and only an idiot would pay to employ that coder instead of simply finding another sucker who is willing to work for free.
This is the state of affairs created by Richard Stallman and his Free Software movement. Disposable volunteers create software for as long as they are naive enough to do so. Giant corporations reap all the benefits. And it makes no difference to Richard Stallman whose lifework has been the communist takeover of an industry that has led to the enrichment of a handful of capitalists. Richard Stallman got out while the getting was good for him.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)
I suppose you would be happier if we all had to pay for the air that we breathe. Maybe instead of coding, you can get in on the oxygen licensing scam - I mean scheme.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:41PM
Now you're just being silly. We do pay for the air we breathe, in the form of taxes to fund regulation such as zoning to ensure your pleasant residential neighborhood doesn't have a polluting factory poisoning your air and dumping radioactive nuclear waste in your backyard which will slowly kill you.
Likewise we pay for the water we drink and the sewers we use and the roads we drive on and the sidewalks we walk on, again with taxes.
Maybe you want to implement the Software Tax which Richard Stallman advocated in the GNU Manifesto. This would be a single payer system for all software, funded by your taxes, which would pay coders so Google wouldn't need to pay anyone ever, not even a single H1-B. Unless of course you're already paying too much in taxes for single payer programs that directly benefit you, like Medicare.
Nah, that would be too socialist for you. Let's stick with the communist model where Free Software is produced by unpaid volunteers for the benefit of capitalist billionaires. It's what works.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:44PM (7 children)
Its just another trolling spammer. At least this one can actually string a few words together into a sentence. Even if that sentence is a bunch of anarchist talking points.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @05:20PM (6 children)
On the contrary. I am someone who has actually read the GNU Manifesto and the General Public License from beginning to end. Can you say the same? Have you even read either document, ever?
The Free Software movement is not some folk myth about how great Linux is to use in your basement while you eat Cheetos and Mountain Dew. The GNU Manifesto has explicitly stated goals to make sure you don't get paid and can't afford those Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
Sweet foolish child, the words long written down have told you that Richard Stallman wants you to be poor when you grow up.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:48PM (5 children)
You must be completely inexperienced at getting paid to program.
Have you ever actually held a programming job?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 08 2018, @08:25PM (1 child)
Probably just an edgy kid who came in his pants for solving a "difficult" hackathon problem all by himself before somebody else told him about adjacency matrices.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @08:41PM
No, I don't code golf, bro. Too impractical, utterly pointless.
I am running some code through a debugger right now because I've ventured so far beyond the specifications of the language that I'm firmly in implementation defined behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @08:36PM (2 children)
Yes I have held a programming job. My title was Programmer and it was my job to find abandoned Free Software projects that were almost but not quite sufficient for the needs of the company and fix all the bugs so the software could actually be used.
I also have authored many of my own Free Software projects, abandoned of course.
So I am very experienced in the lifecycle of Free Software. It goes like this.
1/ Creation. Some naive fool codes a piece of Free Software.
2/ Growth. Like minded fools contribute to the project.
3/ Abandonment. The contributors become disillusioned and abandon the project.
4/ Theft. Finally someone eventually comes along and steals the abandoned code.
Only in the final stage, Theft, does a Free Software project turn a profit, and not for the original contributors.
I might wonder who is profiting from my code now, but the truth is I don't care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @01:50AM
Pull your head out of your ancap ass. Ever have to deal with somebody proprietary shit code you can't fix?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:54PM
Show me on the doll where free software touched you.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 08 2018, @03:52PM
I hope I can starve in the gutter but with a nice Oculus Go VR headset.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:00PM
FOSS was inevitable. Other nation states wouldn't have accepted all their documents and tax systems being dependent on American technologies. Either the Russians, Europeans or the Chinese would have eventually promoted a local university developed compiler stack entirely. China came very close to this multiple times. Russia already had knockoff x86s in mass production.
A business model that depends on industrial secrets is doomed to fail.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Sunday July 08 2018, @03:59PM (3 children)
As a society, do we really want people working in call centers? I mean the kind where they follow a script, which is all Duplex is intended to do. It seems like a terrible waste of human life and the potential of the mind to me, to treat a person like a machine for talking. Of course it would be bad if we can't find something better for them to do, but somehow I feel more optimistic about a world that doesn't subsist on making people behave like machines.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:16PM (2 children)
As a society, do we want people working at all? When people can't get jobs [nytimes.com], are we willing to assume responsibility for their continued existence? Or will we watch as they tear the society apart?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:40PM
Richard Stallman doesn't want people to work unless they're working on Free Software for free. People who can't get jobs should just get jobs as sales clerks in retail shops that don't exist anymore since Amazon took GNU/Linux and used it to drive retail out of business.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Sunday July 08 2018, @11:56PM
I think we'll have to take responsibility for a large portion of them at least. Or else who's buying and wearing the clothes the machines design and perhaps someday fabricate, pack, and ship? Sure it's possible in theory for the mega-rich to build robotic factories solely for their own needs, cutting everyone else out, but consider how vulnerable our technical infrastructure is to disruption. It's so intricate, spread out, and tightly coupled that a disgruntled populace could stop it without much trouble. Consider how poorly secured an oil pipeline is and you get some idea; the fact that they stay working at all is a testament to how many of us want to keep that oil flowing.
But aside from that, I suspect we'll find new things for people to do, things that would currently cost too much if the customer had to pay for a person's livelihood, but might be thinkable if that livelihood were cheaper. The fashion example in the article you linked is a great example, because clothing is absurdly cheap now compared to any other time in history, but it can still get cheaper. Further agricultural automation won't actually cost many jobs because there are so few to take, but it could make labor-intensive fresh vegetables as cheap as grain, and with lab-grown meat could put a delicious and healthy diet within the reach of billions. Printed buildings could make housing cheaper, automated vehicles drop the cost of transit, and so on. I'm not saying it can't all go wrong, but based on our past experience as a species it certainly doesn't have to.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:41PM (3 children)
The end game of capitalize is to make as much money as possible. In the past, people were disposable; it was easy to use them up doing dangerous, repetitive, or otherwise easily automated jobs. Now that we have pesky laws and regulations to protect workers, and advanced technology, automation is being looked to.
However, if we use this as an excuse to throw those disposable people away by cutting all social services to those "lazy fucks that don't have a job", I suppose ends up with the same result. We could also say"great, lets automate the crap jobs and reserve people for the ones that need a person, or just work better with a person."
Society goals sometimes run counter of capitalist ones. Finding a balance is key. Pure-anything is going to be a problem.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @04:47PM (1 child)
Where's our good friend Uzzard to tell those lazy fucks to go get a job! Getting a job is easy when you're an unskilled piece of shit who blows goats and trolls lesbians!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:16PM
Trolling lesbians doesn't pay very well.
Perhaps you should check with your local community college. Mine has several programs in welding, industrial robotics, and CNC operation. They're roughly 10 week courses, full time. Only flaw in our system is that you'll need to take out a student loan. Pretty much all the jobs available to people who complete those courses pays more than programming jobs.
(Well, first year at a programming job around here pays like $60-$80k. Then they fire you after a year if you aren't working 100 hours per week. You'll make $45-$50k out of the door with a skilled trade, which by my math puts you ahead of the programmer after 2 years. Plus, you won't ever be cornered by reactionary feminists and sexually harassed [in person] over the lack of cisfemale welders and CNC operators and some crazy conspiracy theory that welding technology was designed specifically to exclude people with wombs. Win, win in my book.)
Stop your beta cuck whinging and get a skill, you incel!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @08:38PM
Kurt Vonnegut explored this in "Player Piano" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel) [wikipedia.org]
Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in these issues of automation and labor. And damn entertaining as well, Vonnegut knew how to tell a story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @07:24AM
People call them capitalism and communism. The capital does not rule, the financial system does. The people do not rule, the bureaucrats do. We can't say capitalism/communism is bad because nobody could get around to implement it.
So, voting with your wallet is not feasible when money is fake. How to get out? I don't know really. Have something superior that emerges from the underground when it can't be stopped. An energy/nutrition/scientific breakthrough. Which the incumbents fear and apparently already curbed some times. Have a distaste for the zeitgeist. Repulsion for anything smelling like propaganda, especially when it comes from your own side.
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Sunday July 08 2018, @05:08PM (1 child)
The spokesperson went on to say that after this test there will be cake and grief counseling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @05:26PM
The cake is real but the grief counseling is a lie.
You choke to death on cake while sobbing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:50PM
Big room with lots of folks talking on the phone, they call it a Call Center. Big room with lots of the servers, lots of computer talking on the internet, talking on the phone, they call it a Data Center.
Does anyone remember answering machines? The joke went, have your machine call my machine. And it was very funny because they could only answer. They couldn't call. Now they can!!!! And a lot of you got a call from me. It wasn't me, it was my machine. A Fake Call. Telling you to vote Republican!!!
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:08PM (5 children)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:46PM (1 child)
The machine is programmed to speak Stupid Indian English with a curry eater accent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @01:44AM
Won't someone think of all those unemployed Indians?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @08:44PM
Didn't get my phone bill in the mail last year, called Verizon and got an AI of some sort. Must be a common problem because it was very quick to request a duplicate statement. Certainly this was quicker than jumping through hoops on their website where I would have to establish a login first.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jcross on Monday July 09 2018, @12:01AM (1 child)
Also when I talk to a person who's on a script, I usually wind up feeling like I'm participating in their degradation. If the essence of what's degrading about prostitution is the use of a whole person for such a small part of what makes them human, than call centers aren't really so much better.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 09 2018, @07:26AM
Plus, you can hang up on the bots with no probs, we do not care, after all.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 09 2018, @01:45PM
How about "Double Talk"?
Or "Half Duplex". More light weight than Cortana. Only half the untruths of Siri. More environmentally friendly than Bing.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.