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posted by martyb on Sunday July 08 2018, @02:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the at-least-for-now dept.

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.

Also at Techspot and CNET.

Previously: Google Duplex: an AI that Can Make Phone Calls on Your Behalf
Google Starts "Limited Testing" of Google Duplex AI System


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @05:09PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @05:09PM (#704263)

    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)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:00PM (#704276) Journal

    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.

    --
    “I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:28PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:28PM (#704282)

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:01PM (#704295)

        Read this excerpt of the GNU Manifesto, please.

        In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

        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

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 09 2018, @12:09AM (#704361) Journal

          Now, please tell the class how gifting Free Software to corporations like Google is a step toward the postscarcity world?

          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

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @12:10AM (#704362)

          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

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @01:17AM (#704375)

          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

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @04:03AM (#704428)

          Explain how the Free Software movement has not simply taken from the poor and given to the rich?

          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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @06:52PM (#704291)

      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)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:15PM (#704303) Journal

        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.

        --
        “I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:41PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:41PM (#704306)

          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.