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From TFA: "As Axios[0] noted Thursday morning, there was something a little off in the conversations the A.I. had on the phone with businesses, suggesting that
by teachrdan 8y ago
From TFA:
"As Axios[0] noted Thursday morning, there was something a little off in the conversations the A.I. had on the phone with businesses, suggesting that perhaps Google had faked, or at least edited, its demo. Unlike a typical business (Axios called more than two dozen hair salons and restaurants), the employees who answered the phone in Google’s demos don’t identify the name of the business, or themselves. Nor is there any ambient noise in Google’s recordings, as one would expect in a hair salon or a restaurant. At no point in Google’s conversations with the businesses did the employees who answered the phone ask for the phone number or other contact information from the A.I. Further, California is a two-party consent state, meaning that both parties need to consent in order for a phone conversation to be legally recorded. Did Google seek the permission of these businesses before calling them for the purposes of the demo? Was it staged in the simulated manner of reality TV?"
0. https://www.axios.com/google-ai-demo-questions-9a57afad-9854-41da-b6e2-5e55b619283e.html https://www.axios.com/google-ai-demo-questions-9a57afad-9854...
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- sterlind 8y agoTwo-party consent laws raise an interesting point: how could Duplex operate legally in California? Google probably wants recordings of each call, so they'd have to include a preamble. Phone systems that say "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes" usually: 1. Make you press a button before you speak to a human, thereby recording your consent. 2. Don't record before that point (since you're in the phone tree.) Seems unlikely Duplex will pass as human, for legal reasons.
- bb88 8y ago> Two-party consent laws raise an interesting point: how could Duplex operate legally in California? They're not testing it in California, is one option. Two party consent is not the standard in most states. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-co...
- gnicholas 8y agoHonest question: is one-party consent satisfied if the party that has "given consent" is an AI bot? I could see how someone would argue that there was only one party on the call capable of consent, and that he/she (the human caller) did not give it. Another hypo: What if my AI bot calls the restaurant and talks to their AI bot? Is that a call with zero parties? Can consent for recording be given at all? My guess is that it depends on the definition of "party". Cue the lawyers.
- amenod 8y ago<IANAL> I would assume that the bot is operating on behalf of someone and it is their consent that matters. So if bot gives the consent in their name, it would be the same as if they gave the consent themselves. </IANAL>
- aurailious 8y agoSo that would mean that the person asking the bot to give consent or would that mean Google is the one giving consent? Or is the person giving permission to Google to give consent? Would Google give permission to the recording of the call?
- shaftway 8y agoI'm also not a lawyer, but.... I believe generally the US courts have decided that the person who triggers the action is the pertinent party. Something similar has come up in the firearm fabrication community. There are companies that sell things that are legally paperweights, but are 80% of the way towards being a firearm (e.g. [1]). There are CNC mills that come with programming to take one of these "80% lowers" and finish it, making a fully functional firearm, or at least the part that is considered a firearm by the BATF; other parts can be ordered and shipped online (e.g. [2]). In this case it's not the builder of the machine or the writer of the code that instructs it that is the "manufacturer" of the gun. It's not even the person who placed the unfinished lower in the enclosure and bolted it down. Instead it's the person who pushed that button. I'm going to guess that this will be similar. The user who pushes the button (or asks assistant to make an appointment on their behalf) is likely to be the one giving consent. [1]: https://www.80percentarms.com/ https://www.80percentarms.com/ [2]: https://ghostgunner.net/products/ghost-gunner https://ghostgunner.net/products/ghost-gunner
- Steko 8y agoHow does this work if someone in the house answers their cell on speaker and Alexa records that interaction? Maybe there's an exemption for inadvertent recording? Or maybe their "recording" includes enough abstraction so it's qualifies as "detailed note taking"?
- alasdair_ 8y ago>Two-party consent laws raise an interesting point: how could Duplex operate legally in California? I wondered how this worked with things like Google's earphones that (supposedly) translate from one language to another. Those translations all get recorded and all get sent to Google's cloud (and, likely, get stored there too).
- cwkoss 8y agoI think they may be able to get around two-party consent laws if they never save the audio stream to disk, and only record the output of their audio processing function. Interesting question - would love to hear an opinion from a lawyer. Side question: What makes recording voicemail legal? Is there just a presumption that people understand that voicemail is a recording? I don't think I've ever heard a two-party consent warning before leaving a message.
- bb88 8y ago> What makes recording voicemail legal? Presumptively no one forces you into making a recording at the beep. And the recording doesn't start until after the beep.
- cwkoss 8y agoDoes the beep legally function as informing the other party? Would it be illegal to record voicemail without the beep? Would be cool if the government created a "recording consent" sound, so you could play it in lieu of spending 5 seconds to explain that you'll be recording. I suspect a beep does not qualify in most situations, would need to be more distinctive. Saying "leave your message after the beep" seems unambiguous, but are fake messages where someone pretends to answer the phone in a legal gray area? (I'd guess voicemail is a legally-ambiguous loophole that was grandfathered in because so much of the population understands it, but curious)
- bb88 8y agoIANAL, but it's also just possible they whitelisted voice mail systems in the law.
- Johnny555 8y agoDoes Duplex neccessarily save recordings? i.e. does it save actual recordings of the called party's voice, or does it do real-time voice to text, never saving the voice after it's decoded? Sure, there are going to be some ephemeral copies made in codecs, DSP's and such, but my cell phone does the same. Google may want recordings so they can evaluate the system after a call, but they don't have to make them.
- Gabrielfair 8y agoI would like to see a law mandating all bots emulating any amount or type of artificial intelligence to announce themselves at the start of the conversation
- ihuman 8y agoThis might be a bit off-topic, but what do you mean by "TFA"?
- kilovoltaire 8y agohttps://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TFA https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TFA …seems kind of unnecessary in this context.
- ihuman 8y agoI agree. If I see someone quoting without saying where the quote is from, I assume its from the article by default.
- eigenvector 8y agoA more polite way to preface a quote like that is 'FTA': From The Article.
- bonestamp2 8y agoThe calls were likely edited. As far as two-party consent, maybe they called businesses outside of California... maybe they got consent after the call. Either way, something still seemed weird about the calls.
- mark212 8y agodoesn't matter if the business was outside of California. The California Supreme Court has ruled that if one side of the conversation is in California (e.g., Google calling from Mountain View) then California law applies. See Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc., 39 Cal.4th 95 (2006). Consent after the call would be just fine to exempt someone from liability under California's privacy act.
- bonestamp2 8y agoFair enough, maybe the calls originated from outside California. Either way, I think we can see there are some ways to get around the two-party requirement. But, there's still something fishy about the calls.
- busterarm 8y agoMove fast and break (laws) things!