Google first showed off its phone-calling bot, Google Duplex, in May, demonstrating how the software can make a call that sounded convincingly like a real person. Now, Google has announced a rollout for Duplex, starting this summer.
In this Tuesday, June 26, 2018, photo Nick Fox, VP of Assistant and Search for Google, talks about the Duplex program, which allows the user to book an appointment over the phone, at Oren’s Hummus Shop in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Passionate debate followed the demo, including about the ethics of a robot that can sound so real, people at the other end of the phone could be fooled into thinking they were talking to a human. Google insisted that it didn’t want to mislead anyone and that the bot would always identify itself as an automated assistant.
Since then, little has been heard from Google about Duplex, until this week when the company staged a new demonstration in a Thai restaurant in Manhattan and another in Oren’s Hummus Shop in Mountain View.
In a series of calls with journalists on the receiving end of Duplex trying to make a restaurant reservation, it duly announced itself with the words, “I’m Google’s automated booking service, so I’ll record the call.”
In this Tuesday, June 26, 2018, photo Valerie Nygaard, product manager for Google, presents a demo of the Duplex program, which allows the user to book an appointment over the phone, at Oren’s Hummus Shop in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
It even, when one recipient objected to being recorded, agreed to call back on an unrecorded line. The subsequent call was made by a human, who said the restaurant would be opted out of receiving Duplex calls in future.
So, what does a summer expansion of the program mean, and should we care?
In this Tuesday, June 26, 2018, photo Valerie Nygaard, product manager for Google, presents a demo of the Duplex program, which allows the user to book an appointment over the phone, at Oren’s Hummus Shop in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Google has said that initially, Duplex will work on three tasks: asking a business about its holiday hours, booking a table at a restaurant and making a hair appointment. It plans to start with what it calls a very limited trial of the first of these, before expanding to the others. Making calls to other businesses could follow, though each task would take separate training, using real people to coach the system until it is ready to manage calls on its own.
Although it looks like Duplex is getting better, learning more and sounding increasingly realistic, the biggest advance is the obligatory introductory comment that it’s a machine you’re talking to.
If you’ve read my bio above, you’ll know that I’m an actor. I’m not worried that Duplex will take my work in the same way that I believe that actors will never, literally never, be replaced by even the most brilliant CGI. Special effects are never more than an impressionist mimicking someone famous – persuasive until you see the real thing.
In this Tuesday, June 26, 2018, photo Oren Dobronsky, right, owner of Oren’s Hummus Shop demonstrates the Duplex program, which allows the user to book an appointment over the phone, alongside Valerie Nygaard, left, product manager for Google, in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
I think we’re still a long way from Duplex, for all its carefully added um and ah noises, actually including subtext in its comment. Indeed, some of those at the New York event said that Duplex sometimes sounded sarcastic, which can’t have been intentional. Perhaps that’s the point, that the feelings under our words are more elusive than we think and that however good Google gets at layering its artificial speech, it’ll still be different from a real person.
And what happens when the technology advances so something like Duplex is on the receiving end of the call as well? Will one chatbot recognize another?
We’re still a long way from any of that happening, but as the just-finished second series of Westworld reminds us, the robots are here to stay.
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