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Your comment misses the critical point though... this hits all the places that have no electronic booking systems. To those here that concept probably seems ab

Your comment misses the critical point though... this hits all the places that have no electronic booking systems. To those here that concept probably seems absurd because we're technically oriented. My barber, doctor, mechanic and favorite BBQ joint however still take phone calls to make appointments and you can talk to them about electronic scheduling till you're blue in the face, they have no desire to change. The goal of this technology is to bridge the gap... start thinking machine to human interaction where machine to machine isn't available. Not to mention the language barriers. Think of a person still struggling with a language needing to make an appointment in that language. I can see an interface on this where you would select the location and time and have Assistant call them in the appropriate language to handle the exchange for you. No longer is that local pasta place out of my reach when I'm in Italy but can't speak Italian. This opens up a huge realm of possibilities.

scarface74 8y ago
this hits all the places that have no electronic booking systems. To those here that concept probably seems absurd because we're technically oriented. My barber, doctor, mechanic and favorite BBQ joint however still take phone calls to make appointments and you can talk to them about electronic scheduling till you're blue in the face, they have no desire to change. Sure they will change, my barber uses stripe, my doctor does everything else on computer - he's over 60 and three weeks away from retirement, my mechanic has to be technical to operate on modern cars and uses computers for estimates, sending pictures to insurance agents, etc.
- 51Cards 8y ago
  At what point in our industry have we ever said "Let's stop innovating and making things easier, we've come far enough, now the people have to adapt to us." Natural language processing and conversation is the next step right now... to me this is such a logical progression I'll be shocked if it's not being planned by many teams.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Natural language processing has been "the next step" since the 60s. How often have you called in to a customer service center and as soon as you knew you were talking to an automated system just yelled "operator" until you got a human? The minute a busy waitstaff person knows they are talking to a computer they are just going to hang up. A voice assistant on one side talking to an API on the other side can be close to perfect -- even Apple can get that right with Siri for the intents that it supports especially since you know you're talking to a computer. But going the other way -- not so much.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    Also composition. This entire idea of apps and things in silos are not natural to how humans think. Google search addressed this years ago and replaced the silo Yahoo. Google is going to try to do the same with Ledger as part of Fucshia. Could see it taking a few tries but apps as they are today is a stop gap. Really think Apple should also be working on this but appear to think we are at the end state.
ehsankia 8y ago
It's also worth noting that while they show and advertise Duplex making calls because it's pretty cool, they have said that Google Assistant itself will try to use electronic booking first an then try Duplex otherwise.

scarface74 8y ago

this hits all the places that have no electronic booking systems. To those here that concept probably seems absurd because we're technically oriented. My barber, doctor, mechanic and favorite BBQ joint however still take phone calls to make appointments and you can talk to them about electronic scheduling till you're blue in the face, they have no desire to change. Sure they will change, my barber uses stripe, my doctor does everything else on computer - he's over 60 and three weeks away from retirement, my mechanic has to be technical to operate on modern cars and uses computers for estimates, sending pictures to insurance agents, etc.

51Cards 8y ago
At what point in our industry have we ever said "Let's stop innovating and making things easier, we've come far enough, now the people have to adapt to us." Natural language processing and conversation is the next step right now... to me this is such a logical progression I'll be shocked if it's not being planned by many teams.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Natural language processing has been "the next step" since the 60s. How often have you called in to a customer service center and as soon as you knew you were talking to an automated system just yelled "operator" until you got a human? The minute a busy waitstaff person knows they are talking to a computer they are just going to hang up. A voice assistant on one side talking to an API on the other side can be close to perfect -- even Apple can get that right with Siri for the intents that it supports especially since you know you're talking to a computer. But going the other way -- not so much.
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  Also composition. This entire idea of apps and things in silos are not natural to how humans think. Google search addressed this years ago and replaced the silo Yahoo. Google is going to try to do the same with Ledger as part of Fucshia. Could see it taking a few tries but apps as they are today is a stop gap. Really think Apple should also be working on this but appear to think we are at the end state.

ehsankia 8y ago

It's also worth noting that while they show and advertise Duplex making calls because it's pretty cool, they have said that Google Assistant itself will try to use electronic booking first an then try Duplex otherwise.