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Two-party consent laws raise an interesting point: how could Duplex operate legally in California? Google probably wants recordings of each call, so they'd hav

Two-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 ago
  Honest 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 ago
      So 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 ago
        I'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
        gnicholas 8y ago
        I'm the person who originally posed this question, and I actually am a (former) lawyer. I think these are all good analogies, and courts would think about things like this. But neither the laws nor the judges will be uniform. The laws use different words to say slightly different things, and will have different legislative histories (the record from the officials who voted them into law). Some judges will look to the actual words to interpret the law, and others will look to the legislative history. Still others might desire a "living Constitution" approach — applying the laws in a way that they think makes sense in today's world. Considering the dozens of laws and thousands of judges that could opine, there will likely be considerable uncertainty in this area for years to come.
  - larrik 8y ago
    "One party consent" is mostly to prevent your neighbors from tapping your phone. I think AI bots count in spirit.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - phs318u 8y ago
    > What if my AI bot calls the restaurant and talks to their AI bot? I immediately visualised two physical robots attaching old-school landline handsets to acoustic couplers on their torso.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    A bot cannot enter into a contract.
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      Can an incorporated bot do so?
      - rhizome 8y ago
        A piece of software does not have an identity with which it can sign contracts.
        dredmorbius 8y ago
        And that wasn't the scenario I'd presented. If that software were incorporated, or was acting as or for a corporation, could it?
        rhizome 8y ago
        In that it acts as its own agent? That it has a...thing...that qualifies as a signature? I've never heard of such a thing.
Steko 8y ago
How 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 ago
I 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 ago
    Does 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 ago
      IANAL, but it's also just possible they whitelisted voice mail systems in the law.
Johnny555 8y ago
Does 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 ago
I 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

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 ago
Honest 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 ago
    So 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 ago
      I'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
      - gnicholas 8y ago
        I'm the person who originally posed this question, and I actually am a (former) lawyer. I think these are all good analogies, and courts would think about things like this. But neither the laws nor the judges will be uniform. The laws use different words to say slightly different things, and will have different legislative histories (the record from the officials who voted them into law). Some judges will look to the actual words to interpret the law, and others will look to the legislative history. Still others might desire a "living Constitution" approach — applying the laws in a way that they think makes sense in today's world. Considering the dozens of laws and thousands of judges that could opine, there will likely be considerable uncertainty in this area for years to come.
- larrik 8y ago
  "One party consent" is mostly to prevent your neighbors from tapping your phone. I think AI bots count in spirit.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- phs318u 8y ago
  > What if my AI bot calls the restaurant and talks to their AI bot? I immediately visualised two physical robots attaching old-school landline handsets to acoustic couplers on their torso.
- rhizome 8y ago
  A bot cannot enter into a contract.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Can an incorporated bot do so?
    - rhizome 8y ago
      A piece of software does not have an identity with which it can sign contracts.
      - dredmorbius 8y ago
        And that wasn't the scenario I'd presented. If that software were incorporated, or was acting as or for a corporation, could it?
        rhizome 8y ago
        In that it acts as its own agent? That it has a...thing...that qualifies as a signature? I've never heard of such a thing.

Steko 8y ago

How 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 ago

I 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 ago
  Does 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 ago
    IANAL, but it's also just possible they whitelisted voice mail systems in the law.

Johnny555 8y ago

Does 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 ago

I 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