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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: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Friday May 11 2018, @07:00AM (6 children)
It's great that they have "tapes." But doing a live show, it's much harder to get it PERFECTO.
Let me tell you, I have a daughter. She married a nice -- and very rich -- Jewish boy. And folks compliment me all the time on how well I raised her, what a cute couple they make. They don't see all the dummies & losers she went out with before Jared. And maybe these "tapes" are like that. Who knows how many TERRIBLE phone calls Google had? Like the call I had with Malcolm from Australia. Worst conversation ever!!!
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 11 2018, @11:08AM (5 children)
Why has no one done a Trumpbot.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @11:59AM
What? You think that our own realDonaldTrump is a person? No one could possibly stay in character that long...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @02:04PM (1 child)
That would be AS - Artificial Stupidity.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 11 2018, @04:55PM
AI - Artificial Insanity.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday May 11 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/01/16/meet-trumpbot-the-bot-that-tries-to-talk-like-trump/ [washingtonpost.com]
Using Markov Chains [wikipedia.org], of course.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday May 11 2018, @02:42PM
I enjoy that when I entered in "weather", about 25% of the time it talked about the weather, 25% of the time it talked about "weather underground" (not sure if its the terrorist group or the weather prediction site) and 50% of the time it used it as the word "whether". Seems pretty accurate to me.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh