{"id":21562,"date":"2018-05-18T14:25:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T18:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=21562"},"modified":"2018-06-28T15:24:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T19:24:21","slug":"basic-questions-about-google-duplex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/18\/basic-questions-about-google-duplex\/","title":{"rendered":"Basic Questions About Google Duplex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Primack<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When you call a business, the person picking up the phone almost always identifies the business itself (and sometimes gives their own name as well). But that didn’t happen when the Google assistant called these “real” businesses[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The way the people answered the phone in these recordings was one of the first things that made me suspicious that these examples were either significantly edited or outright fakes<\/a>. Plus, the salon only asks for a name (and only a first name at that). No phone number, no checking if the client has a request for a certain stylist.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Google CEO Sundar Pichai insisted three times that these calls were real, but these discrepancies should be answered. If these calls were edited, even just to remove the business name to limit publicity, Google hasn’t said. Very strange.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Joe Cieplinski<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

But if I had to guess: Google made a real phone call, but to someone who had been prepped to follow a very specific<\/em> script. That way, they were sure to get the responses they wanted. Not so much a complete fake as a contrived circumstance that didn’t demonstrate how this app would behave in the real world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

See also: John<\/a> Gruber<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2018-06-02): John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

But Pichai also said “This will be rolling out in the coming weeks as an experiment.” On the one hand, that makes me feel like maybe I am<\/em> off my rocker for being so skeptical. Why in the world would Pichai say that if they weren’t at a stage in internal testing where Duplex works as the recordings suggest? But on the other hand, if they are that close, why haven’t they invited anyone from the media to see Duplex in action?<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The headlines last week should have been along the lines of “Google Claims<\/em> Assistant Can Make Human-Sounding Phone Calls”, not “Google Assistant Can Make Human-Sounding Phone Calls”. There’s a difference.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2018-06-28): John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Google has finally done what they should’ve done initially: let a group of journalists (two groups actually, one on each coast) actually listen to and participate in live Duplex calls.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Primack: When you call a business, the person picking up the phone almost always identifies the business itself (and sometimes gives their own name as well). But that didn’t happen when the Google assistant called these “real” businesses[…] John Gruber: The way the people answered the phone in these recordings was one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-06-28T19:24:24Z","apple_news_api_id":"16919e55-09c2-4f34-b893-a5a12856b75d","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-06-28T19:24:25Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AFpGeVQnCTzS4k6WhKFa3XQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[248,1351,51,1675],"class_list":["post-21562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-android","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-google","tag-google-duplex"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21966,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562\/revisions\/21966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}