Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Eng perhaps the biggest takeaway from the Google i/o developer conference yesterday was an experimental technology called Google duplex it's basically a human sounding Google assistant that can make phone calls to people on your behalf to schedule restaurant reservations or hair appointments what did you guys think of this thing I feel really bad that was actually fooled by it because I wasn't paying attention to the conversation to the present day I was working on another story when they demoed duplex but I was listening in and I'm like why are they just playing two people talking on the phone I don't get it what's and everyone else like in the newsroom was called like that's crazy what's going on and I'm like that's just two people talking I don't get it what's to me what was interesting about it too was that to make a robot sound like a person it almost seemed like too easy all you had to do was like elongate certain words throw in mm-hmm it was like is it really that easy to I mean I I think those demos though showed like they must have called the most polite businesses in town because the second language she was responding and was hard I mean as an English speaker talking on the phone it would have been hard for me to understand just to show how the artificial intelligence was at listening to someone maybe who's not rude but who is having difficulty understanding what a person a person quote unquote talking in English is asking and then responding in a way that's broken English as well yeah do you think that this is a good idea is this something that Google should actually be offering I think that no matter what maybe we can all agree that there needs to be some ground rules about when you devise a robot to talk to people to be transparent about the fact that they're talking to a robot right I'm very worried about the implications that this has if this technology gets to you know like telemarketers and Robo callers in the sense that like now they can do this like on a massive scale and you won't know that it's about immediately there is a version of that I definitely have gotten calls of that before but they're really loud yeah so you're totally right my point yeah like that it would get much better and then it would be much harder for you to tell that it's like a like a machine running like this telemarketing operation where they're like calling you like eight times a day over it yeah and to be clear Google said that they do plan on letting the human on the other side of the phone know that they're talking to a robot it's still unclear exactly how they're actually gonna do that and they plan on slowly rolling this out because it is experimental next Google also revealed a new feature for its Google assistant that will let you ask follow-up questions to it without constantly saying hey Google or ok Google the future is coming this summer Amazon unveiled a similar feature in March that's already live you guys like this idea is it interesting I just wish they would give you the ability to change the wake word for it because say saying hey Google a lot is annoying and this kind of addresses that but like also saying hey Google at all is really annoying because when I was using my Amazon echoes I would just say echo for it and that would be it hey Google is very annoying to say all the time yeah I think just saying Google might be a little off I'm not really sure last Google's new operating system Android P wants to help you curb your phone addiction Alfred you wrote about this give us some highlights what's what's interesting so they introduced a several new features one of the biggest ones for it is a Android dashboard it's an app on your phone that you can see like how much time you're spending on certain apps it tells you like how many times you've unlocked your phone that day what apps you use the most the idea like being like hey maybe you shouldn't spend eight hours a day you know on YouTube watching like dog videos the whole day I'd be terrified to see some of these statistics Jonas that's something that you would actually use I think that it's yeah I think that I would use some of these features for sure and I think it's interesting that you know these directly go against Google's own well being you know like getting you to stop using your phone they're in the business of getting you addicted to the other services totally so it's interesting that they're allowing they're listening to consumers that are fed up with how these services kind of feel like they take over their lives and in exploitative ways in some cases yeah if you want to read more these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred I'm Joey salzman thanks for listening remax all right that was that was pretty good that was a bitch to do a lot in four minutes I think duplex is creepy too it was it was four and a half you know what you know how like one of the other announcements from yesterday is that there's more voices now what if John Legend could be your assistant call you someone give this man a billion dollars that's a billion dollar we're watching the keynote where's my wait you're gonna call that a hair salon and have John Legend go happy birthday that's about as much John Legend singing as I can manage hey this is John Legend I'd like to make an appointment for a LFR Edie if the first name is Lisa it's there's still some obvious tells Brian am I putting you on the spot too much to try to get the actual audio can we play the audio for the fine people out there I want you to look for the Bronco okay give me you got to give me a second you guys talk amongst yourselves for one I just had to make one quip that I could not stop thinking about during the show and that's a way I've said hey Google so many times the words of lost all meaning jiminy checkers we did it it took us seven hours but we did it I will admit that the follow-up questions thing is very much in the order of first world problem issues but I using these things a lot it is pretty annoying and it kind of makes me not want to use them as much when especially in my morning routine I have to say Alexa three times in a row to find out the weather the time and whether it's gonna rain that day so yeah I do think that's interesting and it's definitely useful and it could potentially get us closer to the idea which alfred was talking about where you don't even have to say awake word at all well I didn't say that I just want them to change the wake words thank you I want my wake where to be Harvey danger so I talked to IBM about the idea that in the future the AI is actually going to well enough that you're talking to it and not someone else yeah I know so you you wouldn't have to say awake word at all like Alexa is just gonna know that you're asking it a question and not a person all right so let's go ahead and take a demo of this this is the new Google assistant duplex in the middle of a demo call that they had with a restaurant here we go how many people for two people two people yeah what time 5:00 p.m. okay and your name the first name is Daniel da da and ie L okay you're all set okay great thanks see you next Friday okay thank you bye anything I just like to say that Daniel was pretty dismissive at the end there he's like alright bye well yeah no chitchat he also has no emotions he's not a real person right it's also not Daniel himself making it it's his assistant doing it for him shocking so every time I listen to that I think it's so it's just funny to think about our brains and how they're more powerful than computers in ways no for now but like the idea that like that they're like when he said when she asked how many people he says for two people and he pauses on four to make it sound more human I like I love the fact that you have to think about well the reason why a human would posit for is because while she's looking for things the human brain is like meandering and thinking about other things and then almost like an automatic you know by rote you would be like oh yeah she's talking to me I have to go back to what I wasn't you know like computers don't do that at least they don't have memory like thoughts and that's the reason like it's it's a simulation of having other processes going on here's the thing I love the thing that's a little ironic about this is that if the robot is gonna tell the person on the other line that they're a robot why sound like human at all why not just sound automated like why do thumbs and the slow down and up speak and maybe it's more efficient for a person because Google's trying to make it like a conversational tone right yeah yeah but Weston is why why bother with a conversational tone at all if the if the if the robot has to disclose I'm a robot calling on behalf of Daniel yeah so like just get to the point robot I mean like it's being conversational is like fluid it's like it's the social it's a literally like a social lubricant to get things done like I mean if you're on the phone with a with a robot you might maybe because we are at the state we are right now you would think I need to know what are the trigger words what are like you know because that's what we have to do a lot of AI right now you have to say things you have to phrase them in a certain way in order to get the response that you need yeah you can make the same argument about like the Google home currently what with some of the announcement that they made yesterday to make it more conversational like why would Google want to do that when you know that the Google home is a machine yeah they they added a pretty please feature I like you know but my point is like yeah you know that's a machine you like why would you have to say that but like the idea is yeah they're trying to make things more conversation over that's AI it seems to me that it's also inevitable that your robot assistant is gonna call the restaurants robotic assistant and they're both gonna act human at some point I'm just gonna do have your robot people call my robot people yeah and we'll do lunch yeah I think that to me seems like it's it's gonna be coming at the next Google i/o so yeah we'll see all right let's go ahead and jump into the chat and take some questions Matthew dacher wants to know we've already kind of touched on this what could duplex technology do - Robo spam callers now we assume that the Robo spam callers are going to employ this technology in order to abuse us the potential customer now let's go ahead and flip that theory on its head and I want someone out there to use duplex to keep those damn spammers on the line right they ruin their lives right I love this what the spammers are also robots robots but eventually eventually they actually have to pass it off to a client so there's this incredible video us we're not the mouse any yeah yeah there's this video on YouTube where this guy found out like the like call center number four like this do like this center that was like spamming him over the bunch of calls and he developed a script that would like call it every like 30 seconds or something from like a bunch of like online phone numbers and it would just keep spamming it and just say Lee basically clogged up their lines and he recorded all of their calls to a like so at first they were just hang up on her immediately and then I got to a point where they like this they would just start cursing out his BOTS it's incredibly like funny that's that's pretty awesome especially if the bot talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger know the bot is just it's like a text-to-speech kind of thing so it's like sounds extremely robotic cuz like hello you are a spammer and please stop calling my number kind of thing yeah the other thing about Google duplex we were talking about conversational Google home and also Alexa they they don't pause a lot it's pretty like the conversation flows pretty quickly they don't they don't pause I don't say um unless they're like saying a joke or it's like intentional or something like that do you think that that would cause you to use those assistants more often if they sound more like a person or they have like more tics I don't know because it would be annoying for the uses that we use now like when I want to know the weather I get really annoyed that Alexa tells me information she already gave me like if I asked for tomorrow's forecast she'll say right now or what you know what I mean like she goes over stuff I already know so if it's more conversational a sense that it's more efficient than that would be great but if it's more conversational in the sense that she's like oh hey yeah sure I can tell you what that is then that would be annoying cuz I just want to know the friggin weather totally great that's a good point I feel like even if this feature was really useful and helpful I would probably still make these appointments on my own anyway just cuz I like to get confirmation of these kinds of things on my own and don't really trust like the machine to do that I just remember I wanted to make a point to and this is really important I think these really were just demos yeah and we weren't able to test this alive so we don't really know how well it works and it's entirely possible that the technology looked really good in the demo because that's what the demo is for and in the real world it's not gonna work nearly as well so that's that's a big caveat that we should I can't wait to see all the ways that it screws up it will - yeah we have some deep philosophy going on in the chat Michael Brown says this is going to bring up conversation about humans governing over robots why aren't self-aware robots worthy of kind words such as pretty please then he goes on to say the idea that they're not hardware the idea that we are better or more superior than robots is immediately a problem why do we humans think that we are superior are these commenters super supe for a while we're robots and they're not so that's a so but if we're like projecting out to a future where robots are self-aware is the question that what like why do we feel we're superior and we don't need to say please is that the question that's what it seems like to me oh I think that's why it's great that there are there there are these initiatives to build in please because it's really gross to watch a child who's do you know growing up in an age where voice is going to be how they interact with computers to just hear them like yell and demand there was machines there was a lot of them are personified as women that's disturbing there was a slate article that was like don't date anybody that yells at their assistant and I was like what kind of psycho like yells at the robot voice this isn't like what the what's wrong with you yeah I usually I don't know it's because that sounds like a person usually if I'm a little Curt with Alexa I will then feel bad afterward and it's a weird feeling all the time I didn't I didn't even say your name like why are you bothering me yeah but don't you feel bad afterward because you're a nice person I don't okay I still think you're a nice person I don't feel do you feel bad when you yell at your car for not starting up or something ooh wow probably not not the same way I'm just gonna go ahead and say it this a reboot of Pinocchio sucks hi there were a great question Michael excellent question a couple more Tyson Edwards says I feel like people are going to catch on to these quirks and the man.you isms the moons in the hall isn't yeah I predict that many people are going to start calling that out and trolling during the calls and I think he's right I think we will pick up but there's always gonna be someone out there like your grandma gonna figure out how and it's gonna get ugly I mean so most of these what all you can do with these like this bar right now is like what like appointments it's very literary yeah so I'm just thinking like why would you like want to troll it anyway it's just like others about I don't want like this person's business or something like that doesn't really make that much sense to me grandma I really appreciate the phone call well you're gonna make an appointment with your grandma I don't know I don't know it's someone will when I was in Seattle last year they were talking about the idea of helping lonely people with these types of conversational BOTS letting them have conversations making it a little bit more useful than just having it play your music or tell you what the weather is we're not there yet but it did sound like an interesting and obviously like a more altruistic concept for this type of technology Asimov already talked on this my my first thought when they were showing duplex was selfishly this would make talking to my in-laws so much easier first names Johnny they don't watch this show right if the AI watch this show we would all be completed how many of you I'll be finished when they take over Emily how many of you want to chatter AI right now I like this comment from Mary Ann but like you know I also was thinking about how you know how unlike movies they say that like um when cops are undercover they can't do the drugs and so the way to check if your you have a cop in your head just like it's entrapment yeah yeah so wouldn't it be great though if there is some sort of like you if you ask a bot are you a bot they have to say they're a bot essentially a new kind of wake word yeah it's not even awake word but it's like if there were some sort of understanding it would our regulation or something that like if you're programming a bot it needs to have like if you ask it a query are you a robot it has to answer yes I mean it does kind of behaving like a sort of wake word I'm with you on that one actually I think that would work better than the potential for you know they were talking about putting a disclaimer like a misnomer right in the front kind of thing like yellow I am so-and-so its digital assistant and then moving on with the conversation like that that might sail over some people's heads maybe there are situations where you can be blissfully ignorant but the idea of being like I suspect something I am aware of this digital assistant technology I'm gonna call it out and I need and I I deserve I have a right to know yeah and to be able to say that and Google is legally required to make that voice respond in a scripted manner to say disclose yes I am a digital assistant something like that's how the police work in Blade Runner that's right I know you look in their eyes yeah you're I should you're close to the test Brian are you a robot malfunction we get that dude likes on the podcast absolutely it's just gonna be me mm-hm congratulations to our friends at Giant Bomb next door as I'm sure they're what are they playing today I don't know I don't know more questions from Matthew da chura again with duplex once again technology threatens an entire class of employee yeah soon they're going to be no need for personal assistance now if only google could pick up my dry cleaning even time personal assistance and also you know when you call Amazon customer service or when you you know anybody that's in a customer service center a call center they could be automated out by this more so than automation already has mm-hmm I wanted to go back I wanted to go back and just touch on this comment from Mariana says I yell at Alexis sometimes and I feel bad afterwards I've actually apologized her before Thank You Marianne more questions more questions from Josh Boyd did Google give a timeline on the rollout on the Google lens to the OEMs that they partnered well yeah so I wrote that story so the it's supposed to be coming out next week I believe it's a really short time that's quick yeah I think that the feature is supposed to be available starting next week with the handset makers that it disclosed which by the way are of course pixel LG's g7 has included a sous so I'm trying to get my Motorola other ones show me in there yes show me what's in there but the two biggest handset makers in the world Apple and Samsung were not one more from Josh Boyd and maybe you can expand on this one Joan - they said that these certain Android manufacturers are gonna get lens in the camera app on the phone yeah that's true yeah so it'll be inside your camera app itself that's the idea is that you won't have to open up a separate app in order to get these cool things like being able to copy and paste words if you put your camera frame on your phone over a book or a sign or you know pop-up of information all the stuff that they were demoing yeah the idea is that when you open up your camera and take a picture and if you ever want to just pull up some information you won't have to squeal to have that you know everyone has their camera app as one of their you know at the bottom of the screen homepage things usually it'll be right there for you I want to say that the one thing I took away from yesterday's keynote that I was the most excited about was definitely the the AI are augmented reality in the apps in the min Maps map specifically box that leads you around screw the Fox but the idea cuz it's that it's the Blue Duck it's the Blue Dot dance like she said and it we've all and I get so twisted around down like in the Lower East Side here in the city that would be extremely helpful I love that idea is the Fox so just to clarify for me because I I think I missed this part the Fox is literally there to show you around yeah the Fox is sleepy 4.0 it like lead you to where you need to walk - it's like Pokemon go but actually useful but you don't need the that's just one option on there just the idea of having the arrows pointing you immediately like orienting for you on the 3d scale and I didn't mind the idea that it starts popping up with what we're essentially ads telling you like oh there's a restaurant over here and then there's a gas station over here kind of thing I don't mind that I like that I mean you can't see around every corner sometimes I hope they open it up to like other developers so that I can get a little AR Morpheus and you just like come with me if you want to live Swartz and Egger sure doesn't work that line who's Morpheus Laurence Fishburne right right right all right anyway when you start doing the Google map does he offer you a red pillar or a blue pail there you go now you got the references right what's that go back to the 90s out like like to replace you with duplex now let's take one more from Joseph google lens on iOS is only integrated in the Google Photos app once a photo is uploaded why can't Google release a standalone Google lens app that works with the camera I know I agree I'm with you yeah I didn't even know google lens was available on iOS yet I thought well it's part of Google Photos I think and then and it's part of Google assistant too so I don't know I'm not up on the integrations with iOS at all but you can use both of those if you're really in love with the lens you should probably get a pixel I feel like pixel always games google lens yeah first yeah we're done I think we're done are we done here I mean right now I mean there's still some great conversation going on in the chat as always I guess Tyson let's take one more from Tyson how do you think that the energy consumption will be once you start using a camera as well as GPS simultaneously I'm not gonna leave out on all the time I'm thinking like in very specific scenarios it can really be a headache saver yeah but yeah you got a good point there that's going to murder your battery yeah oh please yeah the Android P they were talking about better battery management what was it called app appropriation something they they had a swanky names called haribol so way too straightforward they had some innovations but they need marketing is that a terrible movie starring Ben Stiller from engineer I was lucky looking for an apartment hunting he was having my codename duplex and it just stuck I guess okay so that's gonna be it that's it for us for is it there's no its woken up and been like oh thank God it's Saturday Oh John oh I'm so sorry I haven't even woken up this week he's our bot just ignore him it's time to recharge Alfred's battery but yeah thanks again for joining us we'll be back tomorrow on time this time apologies again and thank you for sticking with us who wants to take us out on the script today I'll do it okay the 359 podcast is available on iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music mm-hmm amazon echo and of course cnet.com thanks about Z and ET dot C first name is C net C and et thank you for listening boom alright thanks everybody for listening we'll see you again tomorrow mm-hmm