AI Personal Assistant

Google recently launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) product that acts as a personal assistant to book restaurant reservations and hair salon appointments. Known as Duplex, the new assistant can impersonate a human voice nearly perfectly, including realistic inflections, hesitations, and a few “ums” thrown in for good measure. In fact, during a demo at its recent developers conference, the human at the other end of the line had no idea they were talking to an AI.

The response was understandably mixed. The first reaction to a new technology is often fear. But Google believes those fears are unfounded and is already looking at ways to let the other party know, first of all, that they are talking to a Google AI, and secondly, that the call is being recorded (which is required by law in some states). It also pointed out that Duplex is only designed for restaurants and hair salons, so it cannot be hacked by scammers and robo callers for more sinister purposes.

Duplex addresses a niche that is currently unfilled by offering more people access to a personal assistant. Eventually, even small businesses will enjoy the time-saving convenience of having an AI make routine phone calls, freeing up humans for more complex tasks. Only time will tell how long it takes for us to embrace this new technology.