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> 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 misste

by 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?
  - pythonaut_16 8y ago
    To me at least, the value of something like Google Duplex would be doing things like scheduling things over the phone, i.e. things that I should already be able to do on a computer anyways.
wilsonnb 8y ago
I really don't care if I'm talking to a person or a robot. Anonymous social interactions that are required to achieve an unrelated goal are a waste of time. I truly believe that my time is not worth talking to a human to set up an appointment that could have been set up in much less time if I could interact with a computer instead, nor is that worth anyone else's time. In many cases, I'm never going to see the person I'm talking to. We won't discuss anything other than the details of the appointment I want to schedule. For all intents and purposes they are no different than a computer to me. I understand why people would want to keep meaningful anonymous social interactions, like conversing with strangers on a bus (or on the internet!), around but I fail to see why anyone cares if we get rid of meaningless ones.

by zeusk 8y ago

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?
- pythonaut_16 8y ago
  To me at least, the value of something like Google Duplex would be doing things like scheduling things over the phone, i.e. things that I should already be able to do on a computer anyways.

wilsonnb 8y ago

I really don't care if I'm talking to a person or a robot. Anonymous social interactions that are required to achieve an unrelated goal are a waste of time. I truly believe that my time is not worth talking to a human to set up an appointment that could have been set up in much less time if I could interact with a computer instead, nor is that worth anyone else's time. In many cases, I'm never going to see the person I'm talking to. We won't discuss anything other than the details of the appointment I want to schedule. For all intents and purposes they are no different than a computer to me. I understand why people would want to keep meaningful anonymous social interactions, like conversing with strangers on a bus (or on the internet!), around but I fail to see why anyone cares if we get rid of meaningless ones.