Google announced all kinds of goodies at this years Google IO, and one of the most interesting was Google Duplex.Its an artificial intelligence agent that can make phone calls for you and we dont mean dialing the number.
We mean it has actual conversations with real life people.If you havent already seen the demo, please watch it below by skipping to 1 hour, 55 minutes on the video from Google's Keynote.
We recommend you watch it as it's amazing.Now, we know that keynote videos are the Instagram photos of the tech world: what you see is highly polished, carefully selected and often vastly different to what you can expect in reality but Duplex could be really useful.What is itGoogle Duplex isnt designed to replace humans altogether.
Its designed to carry out very specific tasks in what Google calls "closed domains".
So for example you wouldnt ask Google Duplex to call your mum, but you might ask it to book a table at a restaurant.What can it doInitially Google Duplex will focus on three kinds of task: making restaurant reservations, scheduling hair appointments and finding out businesses holiday opening hours.Why does it sound like a humanPartly because Google reckons its the most efficient way to get the information, especially if there are variables and interruptions, and partly because if you got a phone call from the Terminator youd probably hang up.How does it workThe full details are over at the Google AI Blog, but heres the executive summary: Google Duplex enables you to get information that isnt on the internet.Google Duplex is the missing link between the Google Assistant and any business, because it enables the Assistant to get information that isnt available digitally.
For example, you might want to know a businesss holiday opening hours but they havent listed it on their website, or you might want to know if a shop has a particular item in stock and it doesnt have online stock availability.So Duplex does what youd do.
It phones up and asks for the information it needs.From a tech perspective, Google Duplex uses a recurrent neural network (RNN) built using TensorFlow Extended (TFX).
Theres a really good introduction to RNNs here.
What RNNs like the one powering Duplex can do is process sequential, contextual information, and that makes them well suited to machine learning, language modelling and speech recognition.When you make a request, the Google Assistant will hand it over to Google Duplex to carry out; if its within Duplexs abilities itll get on with it.
If it isnt, it will either tell the Assistant it cant do it or refer the job to a human operator.Whats so clever about itDuplex talks like a normal person, and that makes it a natural and natural-sounding extension to the OK Google functionality we already know.
Lets stick with our restaurant example.With Duplex, we could say OK Google, find me a table for Friday night and the Google app would then call restaurants on your behalf.
Not only that, but it would have conversations so if you wanted a table for around 7:30 but there wasnt one, it could ask what times were available and decide whether those times fit your criteria.
If not, the Google app would call another restaurant.
Similarly if you wanted to arrange a meeting with Sarah, the Google app could call Sarah (or Sarahs AI) to talk through the available time slots and agree which one would be best.The key here is that this is all happening in the background.
You tell Google to do something and it goes and does it, only reporting back after the task is complete.Isnt it creepyIt is a bit, and its prompted some discussions online already: should AIs tell us that theyre AIs when they phone us upWhats the legal situation if your AI makes a deal with my AI without asking either of us first Will there be a version with a croaky voice we can use to call in sick More worryingly, what if someone hijacks your account and uses it to impersonate youWhos it forThe benefits for people with hearing difficulties are obvious, but it can also overcome language barriers: you might not know the local language, but Google Assistant does so it can converse in a language you dont speak.And it can be asynchronous, so you can make the request and then go offline while Google Duplex gets on with the job: it will report back when youre online again.
Thats useful in areas of patchy connectivity, or if youre just really, really busy.Whats it capable ofThats a very good question.
Right now, our personal digital assistants are more about the digital than the assistance: you can ask them to turn up the lights or tune the radio, but they cant book your car in for a service, make a dental appointment or any of the many other bits of tedious admin we spend so much time doing.
Imagine the hours wed save if we didnt have to spend countless hours on the phone to change the tiniest little detail in a form, answer a simple customer service question or find out why our broadband is on the blink again.Or, you know, it could go bad and refuse to open the pod bay doors.2001 jokes aside, we can easily imagine Duplex-style agents tricking us into answering the kind of robocalls we currently terminate.
And we can also imagine scams using this kind of technology to try and get your online banking details.Duplex and artificial intelligence generally is a good example of how technology is morally neutral, neither good nor bad.
As Microsoft also showed us this week theres enormous potential to do good.But if its possible to misuse this tech, someone will find a way to do it.When can I get Google DuplexGoogle is set to start testing the feature in a public beta via Google Assistant at some point in the summer, although an exact release date or the regions it'll be available in have yet to be announced.QdBqCPMxZjbMomWs4qDmve.jpg#