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Talking to Google Duplex: Google’s human-like phone AI feels revolutionary

18 points by el_duderino 8y ago

tsycho 8y ago
It was amusing to read John (Daring Fireball) Gruber's posts accusing Google of lying on State at I/O, and making up the demo phone calls. A simple question to ask would have been: What would Google gain by lying? And how much more credibility would it lose by blatantly lying about its capabilities, on stage, at its biggest annual event? The incentives don't align, and hence the simplest explanation was that they weren't.
- s3r3nity 8y ago
  While I didn't agree with Gruber, I could understand and see there are many reasons / incentives. Two possibilities 1) Getting excitement about a product before it's fully baked and ready 2) Evaluating consumer response to a potentially "scary" project (recall that a lot of opinion pieces came out after I/O mentioning how unnerved some folks were to the idea of an AI voice mimicking human speech "ticks," like "umm"'s or "ahh"'s.
mooneater 8y ago
Duplex is likely built with deep reinforcement learning, though i have not seen that disclosed yet.
s3r3nity 8y ago
Not to jump on the bandwagon critical of Google's Product Marketing / Branding, but this just bothers me: why center it as "Duplex," and not just a new feature for "Google Assistant?" This in no way diminishes how game-changing the tech could be, nor how fascinated / excited I am by it.
TimJYoung 8y ago
So, what is the solution if, for social reasons, people simply reject talking to an AI assistant by hanging up the phone ? I'm not sure that I would be particularly happy to know that the person themselves couldn't be bothered to call me in person. And, wasn't this the same issue with Google Glass, that it was somewhat problematic in social environments ?
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  Presumably businesses are willing to put up with a fair amount from their prospective customers - especially if many people start using Duplex. Your argument would hold for a CEO who has her executive assistant call to make the appointment too - would the employee on the other end be upset she couldn't be bothered to call herself?
- mehh 8y ago
  As opposed to a foreign call centre where they can't understand what I'm saying and only know how to respond to a script ;)

18 points by el_duderino 8y ago

It was amusing to read John (Daring Fireball) Gruber's posts accusing Google of lying on State at I/O, and making up the demo phone calls. A simple question to ask would have been: What would Google gain by lying? And how much more credibility would it lose by blatantly lying about its capabilities, on stage, at its biggest annual event? The incentives don't align, and hence the simplest explanation was that they weren't.

s3r3nity 8y ago
While I didn't agree with Gruber, I could understand and see there are many reasons / incentives. Two possibilities 1) Getting excitement about a product before it's fully baked and ready 2) Evaluating consumer response to a potentially "scary" project (recall that a lot of opinion pieces came out after I/O mentioning how unnerved some folks were to the idea of an AI voice mimicking human speech "ticks," like "umm"'s or "ahh"'s.

mooneater 8y ago

Duplex is likely built with deep reinforcement learning, though i have not seen that disclosed yet.

s3r3nity 8y ago

Not to jump on the bandwagon critical of Google's Product Marketing / Branding, but this just bothers me: why center it as "Duplex," and not just a new feature for "Google Assistant?" This in no way diminishes how game-changing the tech could be, nor how fascinated / excited I am by it.

TimJYoung 8y ago

So, what is the solution if, for social reasons, people simply reject talking to an AI assistant by hanging up the phone ? I'm not sure that I would be particularly happy to know that the person themselves couldn't be bothered to call me in person. And, wasn't this the same issue with Google Glass, that it was somewhat problematic in social environments ?

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
Presumably businesses are willing to put up with a fair amount from their prospective customers - especially if many people start using Duplex. Your argument would hold for a CEO who has her executive assistant call to make the appointment too - would the employee on the other end be upset she couldn't be bothered to call herself?
mehh 8y ago
As opposed to a foreign call centre where they can't understand what I'm saying and only know how to respond to a script ;)