4 ms·
In a sense you are correct, but remember that Duplex only works because it is limited to a very strict well specified domain: scheduling for restaraunts and hai
by smadge 8y ago
In a sense you are correct, but remember that Duplex only works because it is limited to a very strict well specified domain: scheduling for restaraunts and hair salons. That is, Duplex only works because there already is a de facto specification for these transactions. It requires a lot less effort overall to just formally specify this de facto standard and deploy it once and for all, but of course a top down approach rarely works. This actually reminds me of the failure of the industry to adopt semantic web technologies. Many organizations are providing the same services and could easily adopt a common “API.”
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> Many organizations are providing the same services and could easily adopt a common “API.” It's not in the interest of those organizations to adopt a common API. Everyone wants to suck in data and be the platform; nobody wants to give data away.
- Piskvorrr 8y ago...but Google is one of the giants that could pull that off and become The Platform.
- freyir 8y agoBut that's the reason why Duplex is interesting, and why there's a grain of truth in what ZainRiz is saying: Humans have settled on a de facto API for scheduling appointments. It uses the telephone as its interface, speech as its medium, and Duplex is exploiting it.
- ZainRiz 8y agoYou first need "ye old barber shop" and "big corp barber shop" to all agree on what this common API should be. That's the old standards proliferation problem https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ Which is what makes it very hard to define a new common API However, they all already agree on the standard for natural language communication (in the context of a strict, well defined domain). That's the pre-existing common API which Duplex is using