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"Impressive, but what happens if Google Assistant eventually learns how to masquerade as its owner?" This is the stunning level of anthropomorphic granting of

"Impressive, but what happens if Google Assistant eventually learns how to masquerade as its owner?" This is the stunning level of anthropomorphic granting of super human abilities the common person places on our cute statistical trick we saying is "artificial intelligence". Naming this field AI was a poor choice. I am sick of the clown-authored-mentality of the articles being published about AI today.

gremlinsinc 9y ago
Are you kidding me? It's not a cute statistical trick, it's a well-thought out mechanism to re-create in 1's and 0's how the human brain works and thinks, we're merely infants in what this will become, as we mind map the brain more - I'm sure the technology will pivot quite a bit, neural networks may be obsolete and something more powerful come along viz a viz quantum computing, but to say talking robots that can totally be confused for a real person, and self-driving cars that make life/death decisions on their own is not impressive and not AI or 'machine learning' is outride ridiculous. Intelligence is something with short and long term memory, that can learn new things in an organic fashion, right now we can 'train' ai's to do some amazing things -- but this is only the beginning.
- hefeweizen 9y ago
  I think the GP is pointing out that people tend to overestimate how powerful these techniques are and that using the term AI might have something to do with that. Not that it isn't impressive: it's just that we are pretty far off from anything resembling what "Artificial Intelligence" may come to embody (ignoring, for the moment, all fuzzy definitions of intelligence). It's like building a paper airplane and worrying about the aging effects of space travel at light speed: maybe a good thought experiment but not that big a concern right now.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  It is a cute statistical trick. It has zero insight. Current AI is a very sophisticated manipulation of past event resolution, seeking to fit a current event into past resolutions. The term "idiot savant" is closer than "artificial intelligence" - because the algorithm knows not what it is doing, why it is doing, or how it is doing. It's an idiot.
  - whataretensors 9y ago
    I'm more hopeful that narrow ai can be the same thing as strong ai with a few theory breakthroughs, increases in model capacity and metacognition.
    - bsenftner 9y ago
      Narrow AI is like a single celled animal, while strong AI is like a complete human in comparison. The complexity difference is more than an order of magnitude, it's an entire evolutionary era.
      - whataretensors 9y ago
        I don't disagree with a gap that needs to be overcome. I just think that the exponential nature of technology will cross it quickly. Evolution is amazing but it doesn't optimize directly for intelligence.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- cirgue 9y ago
  > well-thought out mechanism to re-create in 1's and 0's how the human brain works and thinks, This is impressive technology, but it is emphatically not that. It is very much a cute statistical trick coupled with really excellent voice processing software.
evrydayhustling 9y ago
Yes, fear of turning on its owner is way overblown. What about the more immediate issue that it is designed to be turned against service workers, so that when it screws up it wastes their time instead of yours? Or the more immediate wake-up call that this tech will be used in malicious phishing attacks against your grandparents (not by Google, obv) in another year (or month)?
- heckanoobs 9y ago
  I'm surprised at how well Google's awful little autodialer has been received. None of us like when we call a number and are handled by an automated script on the other end. But we are immediately okay with deploying an automated script which does our bidding? You need a Google Glass-level lack of social accuity to think siccing autodialers on barbers is okay
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - fixermark 9y ago
    I think you're expanding frustration at telemarketing to this technology, and I don't understand why. It's not an "autodialer;" it doesn't appear to have any kind of multicast capability.
    - joosteto 9y ago
      Multicast may be useful when the hairdresser is busy at the requested time, and algorithm searches for an available option.
      - arbie 9y ago
        The optimum scenario is when the algorithm shops around while it is on the phone with barber#1 and discovers the only available time is suboptimal (but still above acceptance threshold). Sort of a "hold bird in hand while rummaging in bush" approach.
wintorez 9y ago
> "Naming this field AI was a poor choice." Amen!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Androider 9y ago
It doesn't have to pass the Turing test to masquerade as you. The John Legend voice for Google Assistant was apparently made without hours of recordings. Companies like https://lyrebird.ai/ https://lyrebird.ai/ do a basic job of copying your voice with about a minute worth of samples (more obviously helps). I think it's entirely inevitable that at some point you will be able to customize the Google Assistant to use your own voice thanks to WaveNet and it's successors. Instead of the recognizable assistant making calls, every assistant will be different.
- toddmorey 9y ago
  This is spot on. The illusion doesn't have to be prefect, just convincing. Huge convenience factor to automation of communications like calls and emails, but it does break the simple mental contract we currently have that "this email was written by Jonathan" and "I'm currently talking to Jonathan on the phone." Not sure I'm looking forward to a continual game of "guess when it's a robot".
  - anshumanf 9y ago
    > Not sure I'm looking forward to a continual game of "guess when it's a robot". Something that already happens on dating services, for example. And makes one cynical.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  The implication is that Google Assistant will gain a will of its own and start masquerading as end-users for it's own benefit. No. Ain't gonna happen. Not even remotely possible.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Why would "will" and special "intelligence" be needed? A bad algorithm, that tries to "predict your schedule" and e.g. cancels your meeting when you didn't want to, or sends flowers to the wrong person at the wrong time, is enough. Think of it like a modern Clippy that can also make calls as you.
aje403 9y ago
A good thing bear in mind is that, as technology continues to develop, human stupidity will remain constant. The moron speculating on witchcraft 300 years ago has now defyingly managed to get a text editor open on the internet and is now pontificating about some buzzwords they've heard of.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  Human stupidity is an endless resource that will never be exhausted.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    If only we could base our economy on that, we'd be good until the heat death of the universe.
    - bsenftner 9y ago
      We actually do! We use the energy of stupid people to power reality TV and it was the fuel behind the Trump take over of the GOP.
cirgue 9y ago
The question still holds, even if you replace it with the more accurate " Google Assistant Development Team adds the capability to mimic their user's voices?". That's a very realistic possibility.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  The question is "google assistant learns how to masquerade as a user" - implying that the Google Assistant will be autonomous, gain a will and start impersonating users for it own purposes and benefit. That is an imaginative stretch into never-gotta-happen fantasy. The statement does not say "users will train it to have their voice", the statement was that the Google Assistant will do this on its own. Fantasy.
coldtea 9y ago
And yet "luminaries" like Musk and Kurzweil expect even more impressive feats than than, and in the next 20 years or so. (Not that I agree with them, I mostly agree with you, just sayin...)

gremlinsinc 9y ago

Are you kidding me? It's not a cute statistical trick, it's a well-thought out mechanism to re-create in 1's and 0's how the human brain works and thinks, we're merely infants in what this will become, as we mind map the brain more - I'm sure the technology will pivot quite a bit, neural networks may be obsolete and something more powerful come along viz a viz quantum computing, but to say talking robots that can totally be confused for a real person, and self-driving cars that make life/death decisions on their own is not impressive and not AI or 'machine learning' is outride ridiculous. Intelligence is something with short and long term memory, that can learn new things in an organic fashion, right now we can 'train' ai's to do some amazing things -- but this is only the beginning.

hefeweizen 9y ago
I think the GP is pointing out that people tend to overestimate how powerful these techniques are and that using the term AI might have something to do with that. Not that it isn't impressive: it's just that we are pretty far off from anything resembling what "Artificial Intelligence" may come to embody (ignoring, for the moment, all fuzzy definitions of intelligence). It's like building a paper airplane and worrying about the aging effects of space travel at light speed: maybe a good thought experiment but not that big a concern right now.
bsenftner 9y ago
It is a cute statistical trick. It has zero insight. Current AI is a very sophisticated manipulation of past event resolution, seeking to fit a current event into past resolutions. The term "idiot savant" is closer than "artificial intelligence" - because the algorithm knows not what it is doing, why it is doing, or how it is doing. It's an idiot.
- whataretensors 9y ago
  I'm more hopeful that narrow ai can be the same thing as strong ai with a few theory breakthroughs, increases in model capacity and metacognition.
  - bsenftner 9y ago
    Narrow AI is like a single celled animal, while strong AI is like a complete human in comparison. The complexity difference is more than an order of magnitude, it's an entire evolutionary era.
    - whataretensors 9y ago
      I don't disagree with a gap that needs to be overcome. I just think that the exponential nature of technology will cross it quickly. Evolution is amazing but it doesn't optimize directly for intelligence.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
cirgue 9y ago
> well-thought out mechanism to re-create in 1's and 0's how the human brain works and thinks, This is impressive technology, but it is emphatically not that. It is very much a cute statistical trick coupled with really excellent voice processing software.

evrydayhustling 9y ago

Yes, fear of turning on its owner is way overblown. What about the more immediate issue that it is designed to be turned against service workers, so that when it screws up it wastes their time instead of yours? Or the more immediate wake-up call that this tech will be used in malicious phishing attacks against your grandparents (not by Google, obv) in another year (or month)?

heckanoobs 9y ago
I'm surprised at how well Google's awful little autodialer has been received. None of us like when we call a number and are handled by an automated script on the other end. But we are immediately okay with deploying an automated script which does our bidding? You need a Google Glass-level lack of social accuity to think siccing autodialers on barbers is okay
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fixermark 9y ago
  I think you're expanding frustration at telemarketing to this technology, and I don't understand why. It's not an "autodialer;" it doesn't appear to have any kind of multicast capability.
  - joosteto 9y ago
    Multicast may be useful when the hairdresser is busy at the requested time, and algorithm searches for an available option.
    - arbie 9y ago
      The optimum scenario is when the algorithm shops around while it is on the phone with barber#1 and discovers the only available time is suboptimal (but still above acceptance threshold). Sort of a "hold bird in hand while rummaging in bush" approach.

wintorez 9y ago

> "Naming this field AI was a poor choice." Amen!

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Androider 9y ago

It doesn't have to pass the Turing test to masquerade as you. The John Legend voice for Google Assistant was apparently made without hours of recordings. Companies like https://lyrebird.ai/ https://lyrebird.ai/ do a basic job of copying your voice with about a minute worth of samples (more obviously helps). I think it's entirely inevitable that at some point you will be able to customize the Google Assistant to use your own voice thanks to WaveNet and it's successors. Instead of the recognizable assistant making calls, every assistant will be different.

toddmorey 9y ago
This is spot on. The illusion doesn't have to be prefect, just convincing. Huge convenience factor to automation of communications like calls and emails, but it does break the simple mental contract we currently have that "this email was written by Jonathan" and "I'm currently talking to Jonathan on the phone." Not sure I'm looking forward to a continual game of "guess when it's a robot".
- anshumanf 9y ago
  > Not sure I'm looking forward to a continual game of "guess when it's a robot". Something that already happens on dating services, for example. And makes one cynical.
bsenftner 9y ago
The implication is that Google Assistant will gain a will of its own and start masquerading as end-users for it's own benefit. No. Ain't gonna happen. Not even remotely possible.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Why would "will" and special "intelligence" be needed? A bad algorithm, that tries to "predict your schedule" and e.g. cancels your meeting when you didn't want to, or sends flowers to the wrong person at the wrong time, is enough. Think of it like a modern Clippy that can also make calls as you.

aje403 9y ago

A good thing bear in mind is that, as technology continues to develop, human stupidity will remain constant. The moron speculating on witchcraft 300 years ago has now defyingly managed to get a text editor open on the internet and is now pontificating about some buzzwords they've heard of.

bsenftner 9y ago
Human stupidity is an endless resource that will never be exhausted.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  If only we could base our economy on that, we'd be good until the heat death of the universe.
  - bsenftner 9y ago
    We actually do! We use the energy of stupid people to power reality TV and it was the fuel behind the Trump take over of the GOP.

cirgue 9y ago

The question still holds, even if you replace it with the more accurate " Google Assistant Development Team adds the capability to mimic their user's voices?". That's a very realistic possibility.

bsenftner 9y ago
The question is "google assistant learns how to masquerade as a user" - implying that the Google Assistant will be autonomous, gain a will and start impersonating users for it own purposes and benefit. That is an imaginative stretch into never-gotta-happen fantasy. The statement does not say "users will train it to have their voice", the statement was that the Google Assistant will do this on its own. Fantasy.

coldtea 9y ago

And yet "luminaries" like Musk and Kurzweil expect even more impressive feats than than, and in the next 20 years or so. (Not that I agree with them, I mostly agree with you, just sayin...)