Propaganda reality check: The ‘AI’ phone call and Google Duplex mania
In the wake of a potentially game-changing AI demo at Google Duplex recently, Nico Neumann considers if Google will ever truly be able to provide the perfect hairdresser's appointment via artificial intelligence.
So everyone is going crazy about Google Duplex and the “AI” phone call. I don’t know how many people I have seen sharing the video today with comments along the lines of “this is the future”.
Here are my five questions after watching the clip:
1) Why is Google not showing a live demo? A recorded video could be fake or staged – ironically even using ‘AI‘.
2) Nice sales propaganda, but how many calls didn’t work out until they got these more or less nice examples for the sales pitch?
3) WTF does “gotcha” mean in the second call? I’m very curious what the assistant will report back to you here.
4) We haven’t even nailed chatbots 1.0. I am not convinced this will lead to efficient outcomes in most real-world applications. How often does this save time? What if I get unexpected answers? What if my preferred appointment or option is not available?
Take the following scenario, for example:
You to Google Assistant (GA): schedule hairdresser appointment for THU, 3pm? (not available)
GA to you: appointment booked for THU 10am.
You to GA: rebook hairdresser appointment for Friday, 10am.
GA to you: appointment booked for FRI 11am. (again not available).
You to GA: …
… there are a million scenarios I can imagine where the communication between a human and an automated assistant would take more time than quickly calling yourself.
5) Ethical question – should it be required to reveal that someone is an automated caller and not a human?
Bear in mind what Google writes, (with my highlights):
System operation
The Google Duplex system is capable of carrying out sophisticated conversations and it completes the majority of its tasks fully autonomously, without human involvement. The system has a self-monitoring capability, which allows it to recognise the tasks it cannot complete autonomously (e.g., scheduling an unusually complex appointment). In these cases, it signals to a human operator, who can complete the task.
Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to ridicule the impressive progress we have seen in computer science using new algorithmic decision systems. There are some great achievements based on recent machine-learning techniques, in particular for image and speech recognition and various game simulations.
However, nearly all these situations represent cases with a finite, deterministic set of possibilities and outcomes. The rules of Go are clear. Whether an image is a cat or not is clear too.
But what about the perfect hairdresser appointment? This will depend on your personal situation and context. And the conversation can easily go in a direction which an automated assistant cannot handle anymore.
The result will be: lost time, as I may need to call anyway, and frustrated service providers. Think about the shops and places that gets lots of calls without possible bookings or cancellations because of misunderstandings.
In other words, many real-life scenarios include unforeseeable cases that can easily complicate automated processes, as per my example above. I personally haven’t even had a good experience with chatbots yet. Too often you are forced to answer a million questions and in the end you are asked to call the service line anyway.
Getting excited about future opportunities is fine, but we need to think things through and consider reality. Showing one or two examples in a sales pitch is one thing – rolling out large-scale applications in the real world is a totally different beast.
Nico Neumann is assistant professor at Melbourne Business School.
You have some interesting points Nico… especially #4.
But why do you think the assistant would book you an appointment at 10AM when your instruction was 3PM? The scenario you created there doesn’t make any sense… Rather than book you for 10AM I’d expect the assistant to come back to you with an answer like “it’s not available”.
The Demo (or just a video) from Google shows the person giving a range in between 10AM-12PM and from that point the AI make the decision following the instructions. But if you don’t give options to the system, then I guess you don’t need an intelligent system to help you.
In my view, it’s all based on how we use the machine… a computer is just a technology piece, but the results are very different when used by different people.
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My guess for #4 would be that duplex will be connected to your calendar and will know when you are free or busy. Also, to Paulo’s point, a time range is given in the video example.
But I’m with you on #1 and #2. I’m sure there were a few funny outtakes from previous phone call attempts.
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This could be very useful for the disabled who are unable to place a call, or for when travelling in another country where you don’t speak the native language.
Years ago I worked for a paging company, we were evaluating the potential impact of text/sms messaging. Having timed how quickly someone could ring our call centre and leave a message vs, the longer time it took to type a text on a ‘new’ mobile phone the powers that be assessed the new tech as not a threat.
To be honest, They sounded a lot like you do in this article.
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Have any of you actually presented to an audience? First rule is don’t ever do a live demonstration. There is the opportunity for any number of things to go wrong, plus who would you have it call? Somebody on the stage? Then you’ll be complaining that it’s all scripted.
The system is not in production yet. If you watched the full 1.5 hour keynote you would have heard him say that. If it’s not live, that means there are likely still bugs. They are showing the future. Open your minds to what is possible and it will come. When any of you are on the stage presenting a competing idea, or can rival Amazon, Apple, or Google then your short sighted opinion may count.
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Speech is the weak link here – surely it’s simpler for service providers to adopt a networked booking system that speaks directly to my calendar, than it is for my calendar to develop the ability to talk to a human?
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I wonder what state the call was recorded in, as most states have made recording telephone calls illegal without dual consent.
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Hmmm is this really AI or just another dB lookup imitating intelligence.
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Personally I would welcome talking to a robot who can think logically and actually listen accurately to what I am saying. Telstra call centres in particular could hugely benefit from an upgrade from bureaucratic company-think human-bots who seem unable to improvise away from the company script and its limited set of scenarios to a robot trained in clear thinking and problem solving.
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