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A comment on Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone. Parent comment

Re:Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World ... by stormbrew on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @12:08AM (#17027354)
Maybe it'll motivate more businesses to put more of their transactional things online where the bot can do it without bothering a real human, and real humans who don't want to use this can also avoid spending more time on the phone than they have to.

Honestly, the degree to which telephone calls are still necessary in day to day life is absurd. If this hastens their demise then I'm all for it.

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Re:Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World ... by sametmax on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @01:31AM (#17027599)
Phone calls are necessary for anything that needs flexibility.

Coding flexibility in a website is incredibly hard.

Think about it. A restaurant doesn't have anything veggie on the menu, a last minute guest arrives and is veggie. You call to ask if there is something that can be done.

It's possible to code that, but it's a lot of work to get all the scenarios right.

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Re:Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World ... by stormbrew on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @10:45AM (#17030208)
I said transactional things, by which I mean things that don't require any special figuring for the vast majority of cases.

In the case of a restaurant, having their menu online would make it so you knew in advance of the restaurant has something you can eat. Lots of restaurants still don't do even this.

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Re:Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World ... by sametmax on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @01:01PM (#17031489)
A restaurant that doesn't do this is not going to setup a phone answering bot.
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Re:Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World ... by stormbrew on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @02:19PM (#17032358)
I... really think you're missing the thrust of what I'm saying here? Nowhere did I say I thought they would.
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Re:Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World ... by imnotadoctor999 on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @02:16AM (#17027737)
Yes! Voice/conversations leads to a fundamentally different UX.
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