Google Grapples With 'Horrifying' Reaction to Uncanny AI Tech

Advertisement
By Mark Bergen, Bloomberg | Updated: 11 May 2018 12:46 IST
Highlights
  • Google previewed Duplex at its I/O conference
  • Duplex lets its voice-based digital assistant book appointments
  • "Silicon Valley is ethically lost," said a professor and critic
Google Grapples With 'Horrifying' Reaction to Uncanny AI Tech

Photo Credit: Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris

The most talked-about, futuristic product from Google's developer show isn't even finished yet - and Google hasn't agreed how to do it.

At its I/O conference on Tuesday, Google previewed Duplex, an experimental service that lets its voice-based digital assistant book appointments on its own. It was part of a slate of features, such as automated writing in emails, where Google touted how its artificial intelligence technology saves people time and effort. In a demonstration on stage, the Google Assistant spoke with a hair salon receptionist, mimicking the "ums" and "hmms" pauses of human speech. In another demo, it chatted with a restaurant employee to book a table. The audience of software coders cheered.

Outside the Google technology bubble, critics pounced. The company is placing robots in conversations with humans, without those people realising. The obvious question soon followed: Should AI software that's smart enough to trick humans be forced to disclose itself. Google executives don't have a clear answer yet. Duplex emerged at a sensitive time for technology companies, and the feature hasn't helped alleviate questions about their growing power over data, automation software and the consequences for privacy and work.

"Horrifying," Zeynep Tufekci, a professor and frequent tech company critic, wrote on Twitter about Duplex. "Silicon Valley is ethically lost, rudderless and has not learned a thing."

Advertisement

As in previous years, the company unveiled a feature before it was ready. Google is still debating how to unleash it, and how human to make the technology, several employees said during the conference. That debate touches on a far bigger dilemma for Google: As the company races to build uncanny, human-like intelligence, it is wary of any missteps that cause people to lose trust in using its services.

Scott Huffman, an executive on Google's Assistant team, said the response to Duplex was mixed. Some people were blown away by the technical demos, while others were concerned about the implications. Huffman said he understands the concerns. Although he doesn't endorse one proposed solution to the creepy factor: Giving it an obviously robotic voice when it calls. "People will probably hang up," he said.

Advertisement

In an interview on Wednesday, Huffman suggested the machine could say something like, "I'm the Google assistant and I'm calling for a client." More experiments are planned for this summer, he noted.

Another Google employee working on the assistant seemed to disagree. "We don't want to pretend to be a human," designer Ryan Germick said when discussing the digital assistant at a developer session earlier on Wednesday.

Advertisement

Germick did agree, however, that Google's aim was to make the assistant human enough to keep users engaged. The unspoken goal: Keep users asking questions and sharing information with the company - which can use that to collect more data to improve its answers and services.

There's a thin line between Google's aim of making its assistant like a human and not deceiving real humans with software like Duplex. Google consciously decided against giving the assistant a real human background. When it's asked how old it is, or where it was born, it either avoids the question or says clever things like "I was born in a meeting."

Duplex has been designed to perform a limited range of very specific tasks. Google's AI technology isn't smart enough to learn to do many other things quickly. If the human on the other end of the line asked questions about something other than hair or restaurants, Duplex wouldn't have a human answer and may well end the call - making it clear it is software. One Googler compared it to OpenTable's online restaurant reservation system, which automates the process online. No one worries that system will dupe humans by learning to do other tasks, the employee noted.

The predicament didn't end with realistic robo-calling. Douglas Eck is a scientist at Magenta, a Google AI project researching the use of machine learning to create music, video, images and text. He was asked about his vision of the future in front of a packed audience of developers at I/O on Wednesday.

Eck said machine learning, a powerful form of AI, will be integrated into how humans communicate with each other. He raised the idea of "assistive writing" in the future with Google Docs, the company's online word processing software. This may be based on Google's upcoming Smart Compose technology that suggests words and phrases based on what's being typed. Teachers used to worry about whether students used Wikipedia for their homework. Now they may wonder what part of the work the students wrote themselves, Eck said.

This could be a dystopian vision, but it doesn't have to be that way, the Google scientist concluded.

© 2018 Bloomberg LP

 

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Advertisement

Related Stories

Popular Mobile Brands
  1. Nothing Phone 3 Price, Colour Options Tipped Ahead of Global Debut
  2. Realme C71 With 6,300mAh Battery Goes Official: Price, Specifications
  3. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Spotted on WPC Database With Qi2 Charging Support
  4. Google Pixel 10 Series Reportedly Set to Launch on August 20
  5. Vivo Y19s Pro With 6,000mAh Battery, 50-Megapixel Main Camera Launched
  6. Meta Aiming to Fully Automate Advertising With AI by 2026: Report
  7. Microsoft Bing Is Letting You Generate AI Videos Using Sora for Free
  8. Samsung Galaxy Ring 2 Said to Be in Development, but 2025 Launch Unlikely
  1. Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks Announces Rebrand, Begins Hiring for New Action Game
  2. ISRO Successfully Tests SE2000 Engine for Next-Gen LVM3 Rocket Upgrade
  3. Japan’s Resilience Lander to Touch Down on the Moon on June 5: What You Need to Know
  4. 1,350-Year-Old Burial Reveals ‘Ice Prince’ Toddler Laid to Rest With Sword and Silk Robes
  5. Padakkalam OTT Release Date: When and Where to Watch Malayalam Supernatural Comedy Online?
  6. iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air to Debut Without ProMotion Display Features, Tipster Claims
  7. OpenAI's Plans for All-Knowing ChatGPT Super Assistant Revealed in Internal Document
  8. Flagship India EV Policy Is a ‘Non-Starter’ for Global Firms
  9. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Price in India Temporarily Cut by Rs. 12,000: Specifications, Features
  10. Elden Ring Nightreign Sells 3.5 Million Copies as FromSoftware Confirms Duos Mode Is on the Way
Gadgets 360 is available in
Download Our Apps
Available in Hindi
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2025. All rights reserved.