Gadgetory

Google wanted to make its voice assistance sound more human but the company may have taken things a step too far Google revealed that it is able to make a computer speak in a way that can fool others into thinking it is human just listen in to this example of the Google assistant robot calling a hair salon receptionist to book an appointment on behalf of its human owner now happening healthier hi I'm calling to book a woman's haircut for our clients um I'm looking for something on May 3rd sure give me one second mm-hmm so our what time are you looking for a loan at 12:00 p.m. we do not have a 12 p.m. available the closest we have to that is a 1:15 do you have anything between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. depending on what service she would like what service is she looking for just a woman's haircut for now ok we have a 10 o'clock 10:00 a.m. is fine not only did Google eliminate the typical robot sounding voice but the computer is using language fillers and quirks to make it sound more real there were owns and moons and the computer even used upspeak which is that trend where people speak phrases with an upward Bend so it sounds like a question Google calls this new assistant technology duplex and the plan is to launch this advanced artificial intelligence in the summer with limited release now here's how it would work you pull out your phone ask the Google Voice assistant to book you a reservation somewhere then the robot on its own goes to work if it cannot make the reservation electronically say using something like open table it will jump on the phone and call the business to handle the back-and-forth convo of making your appointment you will get an alert when it's done you won't even hear the conversation that took place here's another example Google provided this time the robot assistant is a male voice looking a restaurant reservation over the phone hi I'd like to reserve a table for Wednesday the set oh they win people it's for four people four people win next Wednesday at 6 p.m. Oh actually the leaves are for light opera like apply people for beautiful before you can come how long is the way usually to be seated when tomorrow all we care for next Wednesday the 7th oh no it's not too easy you can come from Home Depot okay oh I got you banging once again Google can keep up with complex questions it sounds super smooth with realistic mannerisms like oh I gotcha and there's nothing to indicate you're talking to something that is not alive and that's a problem if technology is at the point where we cannot tell what is a real person and what is a robot then we need to start talking about the ethics here should you have the right to know when you're talking to a robot does Google have a responsibility to disclose when its artificial intelligence is posing as a human we are living in an age of disinformation right now people can't tell the difference between made up garbage on the Internet and real news photos are manipulated to play off of our emotions and fool us on social media and now you can't even trust your own ears Google is showing us how easy it is for dialogue to be spoofed what can we believe anymore I should note Google has said that when the duplex bot launches it will likely tell the person on the other end that it is a digital assistant but that's a disclosure not present in any of their example phone calls and it's not clear how Google would try to weave that into the conversation making hair appointments and booking tables at restaurants may well be harmless and even helpful but without disclosure the core feature of duplex is in my opinion a deception in this case vocal deception why not just make it a smooth sounding voice why add the imperfections like rooms or us google says these phrases can help the pauses the computer would need while it's processing the information so that means Google took extra steps to disguise the robot to help hide the machine running in the background why even go that far if you also want to be transparent as Google says it will be why are we creating things to trick humans I'd hate to think of this technology getting in the hands of scammers making robo calls preying on the vulnerable yes those problems already exists before duplex but imagine if Kahneman can now operate at scale with friendly back-and-forth banter and what about those political phone calls trying to sway your vote it'll be increasingly harder to tell what is real Google may be proud of how humans can't tell when they are talking to a machine but while Google was celebrating did anyone stop to think what it means for society before making technology is anyone asking questions of if we should make it because if Google or another company uses this without transparency then we'll be the ones left asking a question every time we pick up the phone hi are you alive and if the voice on the other end stumbles before they answer you still may not know thanks for watching let me know in the comments if you agree disagree maybe you see this as the first step in a cool future when we could just talk to our gadgets and these are issues that are gonna get worked out or maybe you're also feeling the creeps with this audio uncanny valley zone that Google just entered be sure to subscribe and click on that Bell icon to keep up with all the biggest stories coming out of Google i/o this week