I'm concerned that a lack of understanding and fear will limit the benefits we get from technology. I don't think that calling for regulation and making this illegal is the appropriate next step.

They explicitly say:

> We want to be clear about the intent of the call so businesses understand the context.

You note:

> laws against what they're doing needs to be passed.

What makes you say that robots making phone calls should be illegal? This seems an odd position to have. Do you also believe that it should be illegal for robots to clean floors? Or for your machine learning spam filter to process and filter your emails?

If I sound a little frustrated, I am. I'm scared that the future where technology allows us to do more with less will be blunted due to calls for making robot tasks illegal. I'd love if you'd help me understand what makes you take your position - I'm sure it's logical, and it's just a matter of me being able to understand your perspective. Can you help me understand?

Yeah and I had your view before the last 2 years and the 2016 election. All we've seen is this kind of technology will be abused to the gills to create fake propaganda, robocalls, and phishing scams.

I too want to absolutely, without a doubt, regulate or slow this stuff down until we can better understand how it can be abused. And WHEN it is abused, we have ways to address it and aren't constantly playing catchup to how people are badly using these things.

I am far more afraid of technology we can't control that works for an ad company, not for us, than moving technology forward a little bit slower.

We need to be able to trust our communication, and we're moving away from that at light speed. Where a company whose entire business model is to subtly influence you in the directions profitable to them is the middleman in all of our communications.

I am terrified of this. I am not sure I've ever seen a presentation that terrified me more that wasn't out of a science fiction movie.

> I am far more afraid of technology we can't control that works for an ad company, not for us, than moving technology forward a little bit slower.

I'm not sure what you're arguing for - that you wish companies weren't driving technological advancement? That Google specifically shouldn't?

Also, it's very, very conceivable that there are people for whom this technology DOES work for. The mute, for example. I'm not sure it's appropriate to speak for all of "us".

It's tough here because Google is both an ad company and a product company (funded through ads).

Would you have the same fears if Apple were able to (through some ridiculous miracle) achieve the same thing?

"(through some ridiculous miracle)" -> best part of your comment :-D

You're not alone. This is deeply creepy, wrapped in candy floss.

At the very least, there should be an requirement to identify when challenged.

"Are you a bot?" "Yes, I am Google Duplex v1.2. This call is being recorded; you can see our privacy policy and terms of service at http://google.com/duplex."

There's no way I should be bound by terms of service that are secret unless I know the "code-phrase" with which to ask for it. Google's whole point was to deceive the user into thinking it isn't a bot -- so you wouldn't even know to ask it.

People will be forced to "discover" that they've been lied to, when the bot is caught in a loop and they're going through emotional distress thinking the "person" on the other end is having some sort of mental breakdown.

It's illegal in many states to record a conversation without obtaining consent which is something this product does as a matter of course. This product shouldn't be legal to operate in those states, so you don't have to look very far before finding critical flaws in this approach.

That said, "identify on challenge" is something that Google might be more likely to adopt rather than "identify on call pickup". The latter being something they might spend more lobbyist dollars to oppose.

But what you've said is certainly (or should be) a real concern.

I agree, but the social pressure not to use it would be immense. Imagine the awkward moments where we start confronting people who call us and asking them if they're real.

It's already happening. I'm getting robo calls from some police donation fund that will slow down and restart speaking if you interrupt them (took me a few moments to realize it was a recording).

Charities and political organizations are excluded unfortunately from robocall regulation. Google, though, is not.

If I were to start receiving Duplex calls, and could detect it, I would report each one to the FTC.

Perhaps they should identify themselves upfront? "Hello, this is an automated call on behalf of..."

This reminds me of some of Isaac Asimov's short stories in which the Three Laws are used to force robots to identify themselves.

Recording calls without both parties' knowledge can be illegal.

I think at the very least the bot should disclose that it is a bot right from the beginning.

The irony of someone named ‘...trekkie’, a fan of a future where a military alliance of uber powerful weaponry capable of destroying populations, while continually proclaiming they’re on a mission of peace, featuring computers pretending to be people and doing work for them, androids, and synthetic holographic ar/vr people criticizing primitive AI tech is a bit rich.

We’ve arrived at full Luddism now where life saving and time saving technology in fields like health, transportation, and customer service will be inhibited by hyperbolic fearmongering.

Are you going to pass laws against realistic sounding synthetic voices? Against computers that understand queries “too well”? Against self driving vehicles that drive better and safer than people? All on theoretical harm that actually hasn’t taken place because you’ve watched too many dystopian Netflix sci-fi episodes?

I don’t know what’s more dangerous, the real Skynet, or people who might harm millions by voting for political policies that inhibit real improvements that could be made to help them.

At least, if you want to talk AI being used for harmful things we could discuss feed optimization that parasitizes people’s attention spans and keeps them glued or wasting money on pulling more slot machine levers. Technology that wastes people’s time and money as opposed to things that make people more efficient.

Is it illegal for my secretary or father to make an appointment for me?

Does your secretary or father pretend to be you when making the appointment? Google Duplex is pretending to be a human without the knowledge or permission of the person on the other end of the call.

One of the samples claimed to be an agent acting on the behalf of a client. Google says they're still deciding on the best format for these calls--here's hoping they take the criticism of people like you into account, and go with something like that example.

Of course, I don't really see why there needs to be an attempt to pass as human at all. It would be fine with me if they just reinvented the phone tree with a better ux. Especially since it's billed as a business-facing call.

Would you say the same thing if this tech was created by a small company?

Voice copying is nothing new, many methods exists so I don't see how Google doing this is somehow bad. It's uncanny to say the least, but laws against tech progress? Come on :)

Did you think that advancing AI will be not creepy especially when it's good?

Come on now, this is cool! the correct initial reaction is to be impressed.

What is concerning is the surprising prevalence of technophobic notions on tech focused boards such as this.

There is something perverse about wanting to punish a company for creating something cool, and it’s certainly not the way our society or politics should function.

This is awesome, awesome tech. I just showed it to a bunch of people in my office.

But at the same time, the last two years have shown us that a lot of technology is being very effectively abused to misinform at a geopolitical level, and we as a society need to better understand or regulate this stuff for sure. Lives are at stake.

That said, I'd never say that Google shouldn't work on this. It's amazing. We just need to better understand not just how it can be used, but also how it can be abused.

It's awesome tech, sure.

But it's also "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

They shouldn't've.

How would you handle deepfakes? This is much more disturbing than what is in the post, and it isn't a corporation who built it. I don't think this has anything to do with regulating google.

The reality changes. Fast. You won't be able to trust photos, audio recordings, or videos. You will be able to trust digital signature. To have any opinion whether information about somebody else is real you will need a working web of trust. It's gonna be a great thing and I can't wait for it. It's going to change news, politics and in general the world we live in. It's going to be bigger than the Internet but way more polarizing and controversial. IMHO

One issue though, unless we hurry up and make this WoT decentralized and with open protocols, well, we will get it from FB and the likes.

Web of Trust and Reputation Networks.

To be perfectly honest, I've always personally been surprised at what business people are willing to transact over the low-bandwidth media of the telephone. I've heard plenty of stories of people pretending to be celebrities and getting away with stuff on the phone; I don't need a sophisticated computer to do that for me.

If a real problem of deep-fakes in phone conversations emerges, people will just raise the bar of authentication in phone communications. There's nothing magical about telephone that makes it exempt from the general need to protect against social engineering.

Given the two technologies you've highlighted, what specific regulation would you recommend be added to prevent what bad behavior?

In the short/immediate term, it should probably be illegal to conduct a robocall without explicit opt-in of the destination caller. (Currently, if you get a non-telemarketed robocall, it is solicited, such as you scheduled an appointment and they are reminding you of it.)

Furthermore, if a robocall is permitted to be made to an unsolicited destination, a robocaller must clearly identify itself, presumably starting a declaration that it is a bot/automated agent from a given company on behalf of another company or individual.

And if the call is recorded in any way, shape, or form, the terms of service would need to be presented to the callee, giving them the chance to accept or deny said terms. (Note that if the example calls at I/O were not staged, and real calls, I suspect the recording of them would be illegal in many jurisdictions, including California.)

> In the short/immediate term, it should probably be illegal to conduct a robocall without explicit opt-in of the destination caller

Existing robocall law (including the National Do Not Call registry in the US) is focused around telemarketing. This isn't a telemarketing system; it's an automated assistant. I don't see the utility of applying the existing law to the new use case, as the goals are different (people at home don't want to be interrupted to be advertised at; businesses do want to negotiate business transactions).

> Furthermore, if a robocall is permitted to be made to an unsolicited destination, a robocaller must clearly identify itself, presumably starting a declaration that it is a bot/automated agent from a given company on behalf of another company or individual.

Why? If I have an assistant who makes an unsolicited call to a destination, they don't need to formally state they're acting on my behalf. What about automating the assistant's job makes it special?

I agree with you on the third point (I'm assuming Google has its bases covered there, because unilaterally recording a conversation is old and settled law).

As I said, it should be a law, I didn't expect the existing robocall laws to apply here. Note that in no way has Google explicitly limited itself to conducting business transactions merely because that is what it demonstrated here.

The issue is that the intermediary is a Google corporate entity, theoretically acting on the user's behalf, but at the end of the day, acting on Google's behalf. Consider that Google's bots may do things in Google's best interests, not the best interests of the party on either side of the transaction.

My assistant is another human being, theoretically acting on my behalf, but at the end of the day, acting on their own behalf. My recourse if our needs don't align is to fire them.

As we already have assistants who transmit our desires by proxy, I don't see much difference between a human and an automated script in that context---certainly not enough difference to justify the need for special-purpose law to clarify the nature of my assistant (and definitely not enough difference to justify shutting down the technology with only vague risk and no instances of social problems introduced by the tech).

> if the example calls at I/O were not staged, and real calls, I suspect the recording of them would be illegal in many jurisdictions, including California.

Interesting implications there for how Google will measure / improve the effectiveness of Duplex. Where is the line drawn between recording a call and recording data derived from a call? e.g. clearly recording the call unilaterally is illegal. Presumably just storing a hash of the audio data would be legal, but also useless. Is there some middle ground that is legal, but also useful?