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Google refused to provide the businesses' names to Axios (even with a guarantee not to publicly identify them), and refused to answer whether the calls were edi
by freyir 8y ago
Google refused to provide the businesses' names to Axios (even with a guarantee not to publicly identify them), and refused to answer whether the calls were edited.
If the calls were real, I wonder how many recordings did it take to get these perfect examples? How many times were the appointments scheduled correctly, and how many failed?
But this was just a flashy demonstration to drum up excitement over the Google brand. Until they write up a paper or release it as a product, we're unlikely to know how well it really works.
- gnicholas 8y agoPrecisely. What happens if the system makes a mistake and tells you you're confirmed when that's not the case? Then you show up for a reservation that doesn't exist and you wish you'd spent 3 mins making the call yourself. The question will be what is the net time savings? If it works 99 out of 100 times, maybe that's good enough for many mundane tasks. But if it's 75 out of 100, that's almost certainly not worth it.
- utopcell 8y agoI agree. These kind of systems need 99% precision.
- Proziam 8y agoI'm not even sure 99% would be enough for my tastes. Imagine an important date (anniversary or similar) with your S.O. If there was even a 1% chance that didn't happen because I was too lazy to call I'd certainly be hesitant to use it. And if I can't use it habitually for the task of scheduling, I probably will continue to do what I do now and just make the call.
- snowwrestler 8y agoI think human perception of technology is often dominated by annoyance. From a little bit of research I did years ago, 99% accuracy was nowhere near good enough to satisfy customers of handwriting recognition--that's about one word mistake per paragraph. Consider the new Apple keyboards, which attract hundreds of intense complaints every time they come up here on HN. Apple Insider [1] estimated the percentage of service tickets that were attributed to keyboards: 2014 - 5.6% 2015 - 6% 2016 - 11.8% (first year of new keyboard) 2017 so far - 8.1% So, an approximate doubling of the prevalence of keyboard problems in the first year has been enough to convince a lot of people that the entire product is an unmitigated disaster. One of the very interesting facts in that Apple Insider study is that the total number of tickets actually decreased from 2015 to 2016. If the keyboard was actually a design disaster, you would expect the total number of warranty service tickets to climb, but they didn't. 2014 - 2,120 2015 - 1,904 2016 - 1,402 2017 - (incomplete) [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/30/2016-macbook-pro-butterfly-keyboards-failing-twice-as-frequently-as-older-models https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/30/2016-macbook-pro-...
- gnicholas 8y agoI think people will use these services for less-important tasks at first, and use more reliable/verifiable means for making important reservations like anniversaries.
- telltruth 8y agoSundar Pichai specifically mentioned that it was real time call. It is highly unlikely that person at that position would flatout lie on camera. However it was indeed odd that they avoid actually showing a person making a call from the stage. I tend to think Pichai did white lie in the sense it was "real time" but recorded in past call and perhaps after several trials and well conditioned environment.