Google made big news at their developers conference with the introduction of a big AI initiative called Duplex
It feels like the response has fallen into two camps:
- The ethical implications of this technology and has Google thought it through and do they have the DNA to consider all the unintended consequences.
- This is a potential breakthrough in AI amd will usher in a new wave of innovation.
I guess I don’t share either sentiment.
I do believe Google will consider and address the ethical implications because they will either want to from the inside or will have to due to external pressure (ie regulatory or competitive alternate products).
But this product demo that created such a stir is a bit of a yawner for me from a user perspective. It reminds me of those apps that allow you to send a fax from a smartphone. It’s duct tape for old Infrastructure
Instead I would rather see Google use it’s financial and engineering might to get everyone online and connected in a decentralized way via API so office hours, reservations, communications arent addressed thru computers pretending to be humans.
But my real issue is this feels like vaporware to me. Time will tell if my Spidey sense is correct but right now I’m getting that this demo is just going to remain a demo for a long long time.