So most of us in IT support know what Google Assistant is. To make a long story short, it’s software that does much of your daily planning for you. But they’re taking it even further, coming up with Google Duplex. What is it? Should we embrace it?
Google Duplex makes phone calls to people at your request. However, it uses WaveNet technology?to do so. That’s a speech program that joined sound stogether to create speech. Furthermore, keep in mind you don’t have to type in anything for WaveNet to speak. But it’s really hard to understand when WaveNet speaks. But Duplex adds to Wavenet, and you can actually understand what the robotic voice is saying.
In other words, the Duplex sounds just like a human voice. In fact, I saw some examples where they used Duplex to book hair salon appointments and restaurants. The Duplex voice sounds just like a human voice, even down to the accent. They’re training Duplex strictly for bookings and inquiries. They can’t have conversations like humans can…yet. But their AI is still trying to learn the mystery of human voice and conversation. It realizes each person talks differently. Then there are the languages, dialects, and accents that differ just about everywhere.
Then there are the ethical and moral concerns, like the ones I have. Yesterday in our Boston computer service shop, I debated with a colleague about this. I found the fact that a robot can sound just like a human to take information creepy. There are others that feel the same way. That’s why Google assures they will let people know it’s an AI robot they’re talking to. I hope they can keep that promise because I don’t know how they’re going to do that. Think of all the businesses in the world and customers in the world. Good luck with that one. Because I believe there will come a day where you can and will have full conversations with Google Duplex. It could be an intricate part of our lives. Should we embrace it?