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When did tech reporting become the thought police and a guardian of the status quo? They seem to react to anything more exciting than a new phone release with

by sqdbps 8y ago

When did tech reporting become the thought police and a guardian of the status quo? They seem to react to anything more exciting than a new phone release with fear and scorn. Exploring concepts and ideas is how progress happens and it's telling how they see "Duplex" - the most impressive tech showcased at these keynotes - as a misstep.

cmiles74 8y ago
The whole video strikes me as tone deaf and out-of-touch. The earnestness of it all gives it a creepy tone that makes it all seem unreal. I have a hard time believing this isn't some elaborate joke. Putting that to the side, they had me thinking things like "well, this isn't so crazy, kind of..." all the way up to the bit where they talk about literally creating a one-off product for a customer in order to collect a little bit of data they feel they are missing. Sure, it's creepy to have Google constantly suggest I buy a Fitbit, eventually pushing one uniquely designed just for me, but I can see some usefulness there. Kind of. For the advertisers, at least. But their repeated invocation of Lamarck, paired with this idea that the data they collect from one persons' parents will somehow be bolted onto their children strikes me as classist, elitist and (at the core) entirely deranged. They somehow made a leap from the ridiculousness of "The Circle" right into the worst bits of "A Brave New World" in the span of twenty minutes. It's fun to make fun of the mis-steps of a large corporation and their silly blunders (all phones need a keyboard!), but this presentation is in a whole different ballpark, in my opinion.
- sqdbps 8y ago
  It's not about if you liked it or not, it wasn't meant for public consumption. It's someone's thoughts shared with colleague as part of the intellectual process and that is being demonized.
  - cmiles74 8y ago
    I don't think anyone is demonizing the idea of sharing ideas with colleagues. It's the content, in my opinion, that has grabbed people's attention.
zeusk 8y ago
> Exploring concepts and ideas is how progress happens and it's telling how they see "Duplex", the most impressing tech showcased at these keynotes, as a misstep. Creating agents that can imitate human speech is spectacular but their demonstrated use of it is far from it. Its essentially expressing "my time isn't worth speaking to the human on the other side"; perhaps you feel okay with it when the robot is working for you but I wonder how'd you feel on the other side of the equation. So much for don't be evil.
- pythonaut_16 8y ago
  As if businesses haven't been using robocalls and automated response systems for years.
  - zeusk 8y ago
    Yes, and people don't like that. This way we'll end up with robots talking to robots using human language, which couldn't be more idiotic.
    - fixermark 8y ago
      > which couldn't be more idiotic Actually, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution to piggyback on the existing telecom infrastructure in a backwards-compatible way. I think you just described a stepping-stone for moving from a system where humans burn a bunch of time negotiating deals to where deals are auto-negotiated on behalf of humans without having to build out a new protocol from scratch or run a new initiative through ANSI or W3C. Neat. Beats the pants off the transition plan for IPv4 to IPv6 at least.
      - zeusk 8y ago
        > Actually, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution to piggyback on the existing telecom infrastructure in a backwards-compatible way. > I think you just described a stepping-stone for moving from a system where humans burn a bunch of time negotiating deals to where deals are auto-negotiated on behalf of humans without having to build out a new protocol from scratch or run a new initiative through ANSI or W3C. Except for the fact that Human language is not entirely precise. We can't even implement error-free "smart" contracts in a specialized language and you think doing so in a language with so much more ambiguity using computers is a good idea?
acobster 8y ago
To say they see it as a misstep is, I think, simplistic. The article links to a headline that calls it "stunning," for instance. > The outcry over Duplex’s potential to deceive prompted Google to add the promise that its AI will always self-identify as such Tech reporters aren't the only ones who have picked up on the potential to deceive. Just read the first HN threads about it. The tech is undoubtedly impressive, but the fact that Google didn't appear to anticipate its social engineering potential is off-putting.

by sqdbps 8y ago

cmiles74 8y ago

The whole video strikes me as tone deaf and out-of-touch. The earnestness of it all gives it a creepy tone that makes it all seem unreal. I have a hard time believing this isn't some elaborate joke. Putting that to the side, they had me thinking things like "well, this isn't so crazy, kind of..." all the way up to the bit where they talk about literally creating a one-off product for a customer in order to collect a little bit of data they feel they are missing. Sure, it's creepy to have Google constantly suggest I buy a Fitbit, eventually pushing one uniquely designed just for me, but I can see some usefulness there. Kind of. For the advertisers, at least. But their repeated invocation of Lamarck, paired with this idea that the data they collect from one persons' parents will somehow be bolted onto their children strikes me as classist, elitist and (at the core) entirely deranged. They somehow made a leap from the ridiculousness of "The Circle" right into the worst bits of "A Brave New World" in the span of twenty minutes. It's fun to make fun of the mis-steps of a large corporation and their silly blunders (all phones need a keyboard!), but this presentation is in a whole different ballpark, in my opinion.

sqdbps 8y ago
It's not about if you liked it or not, it wasn't meant for public consumption. It's someone's thoughts shared with colleague as part of the intellectual process and that is being demonized.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I don't think anyone is demonizing the idea of sharing ideas with colleagues. It's the content, in my opinion, that has grabbed people's attention.

zeusk 8y ago

> Exploring concepts and ideas is how progress happens and it's telling how they see "Duplex", the most impressing tech showcased at these keynotes, as a misstep. Creating agents that can imitate human speech is spectacular but their demonstrated use of it is far from it. Its essentially expressing "my time isn't worth speaking to the human on the other side"; perhaps you feel okay with it when the robot is working for you but I wonder how'd you feel on the other side of the equation. So much for don't be evil.

pythonaut_16 8y ago
As if businesses haven't been using robocalls and automated response systems for years.
- zeusk 8y ago
  Yes, and people don't like that. This way we'll end up with robots talking to robots using human language, which couldn't be more idiotic.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    > which couldn't be more idiotic Actually, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution to piggyback on the existing telecom infrastructure in a backwards-compatible way. I think you just described a stepping-stone for moving from a system where humans burn a bunch of time negotiating deals to where deals are auto-negotiated on behalf of humans without having to build out a new protocol from scratch or run a new initiative through ANSI or W3C. Neat. Beats the pants off the transition plan for IPv4 to IPv6 at least.
    - zeusk 8y ago
      > Actually, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution to piggyback on the existing telecom infrastructure in a backwards-compatible way. > I think you just described a stepping-stone for moving from a system where humans burn a bunch of time negotiating deals to where deals are auto-negotiated on behalf of humans without having to build out a new protocol from scratch or run a new initiative through ANSI or W3C. Except for the fact that Human language is not entirely precise. We can't even implement error-free "smart" contracts in a specialized language and you think doing so in a language with so much more ambiguity using computers is a good idea?

acobster 8y ago

To say they see it as a misstep is, I think, simplistic. The article links to a headline that calls it "stunning," for instance. > The outcry over Duplex’s potential to deceive prompted Google to add the promise that its AI will always self-identify as such Tech reporters aren't the only ones who have picked up on the potential to deceive. Just read the first HN threads about it. The tech is undoubtedly impressive, but the fact that Google didn't appear to anticipate its social engineering potential is off-putting.