Google demonstrated its Duplex artificial intelligence technology at the I/O 2018 conference earlier this month. The technology is powered by artificial intelligence and it sounds very human-like, it’s capable of making calls on the user’s behalf and handling tasks such as getting a haircut appointment. Google has already clarified that Duplex will inform the person on the other end of the call that they’re talking to a bot even though it may not seem like it at first and it will also tell them that the call is being recorded, but there is a caveat.
Many were amazed when Google demonstrated Duplex at I/O 2018. The technology is still under development and yet it’s capable of having conversations that sound convincingly human. After the amazement followed ethics concerns which Google has now been trying to address.
Google is going to launch Duplex in experimental form this summer. The technology will live inside Google Assistant so users will just have to tell Assistant to schedule a haircut appointment or book a table for them at a restaurant and Duplex will actually call that business on their behalf to get it done.
The company has confirmed that not only will Duplex inform the person at the other end of the call that they’re talking to a bot but it’s also going to let them know that calls are being recorded. The reason why Duplex will record all of the calls that it makes is for the user to review the conversation later and see how it all went.
Bloomberg reports that this disclaimer will be provided “in certain jurisdictions,” which basically means that this will be enforced in states that make it legally binding on both parties for phone calls to provide explicit consent for recording.
That makes it necessary for the company to do that in those states and it’s yet to be confirmed whether Google will make Duplex share the same disclaimer in states where it’s not legally required to do so.
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