| 1 | Google 's robot caller in first public trial |
| 2 | Dave Lee North America technology reporter |
| 3 | 27 June 2018 |
| 4 | Google 's robotic calling service , which can speak to humans to make a reservation or appointment , is to get its first small - scale public trial . |
| 5 | A few businesses will be receiving calls from the system in the next few weeks , the company said . |
| 6 | Google would not be more specific about how many firms would be involved . |
| 7 | First shown at the tech giant 's developers ' conference in May , Duplex has become one of the most talked about demos of the year so far . |
| 8 | At that event , we heard the robot voice book a table at a restaurant by calling it up , speaking to a human member of staff , and confirming the details . |
| 9 | What startled people was that the voice , while synthesised , was incredibly lifelike - even adding its own “ uh - huh ” and “ mm ” to the flow of conversation . |
| 10 | Indeed , the recipient of the call may have no idea they are talking to a robot . |
| 11 | That 's kind of the point , but that did n't stop an enormous debate about the rights and wrongs of such an exchange . |
| 12 | There was also cynicism about the demo itself . |
| 13 | We were played two recordings , both of which worked very well . |
| 14 | But how many attempts did it take to achieve the flawless examples ? |
| 15 | How could we know it actually worked in real life ? |
| 16 | On Tuesday , at a hummus restaurant in Mountain View , the Silicon Valley town that surrounds Google 's campus , I heard Duplex in live action for the first time . |
| 17 | Human helper Oren Dobronsky , the restaurant 's owner , picks up the phone and we listen in . |
| 18 | “ Hi - I 'm calling to make a reservation , ” the voice , a woman , begins . |
| 19 | “ I 'm Google 's automated booking service , so I 'll record the call ... ” |
| 20 | And so it goes , back and forth - and before long , Oren has the reservation in place . |
| 21 | Five people , 20:00 , under the name of Valerie . |
| 22 | “ You do n't feel that you 're speaking to a robot , ” Mr Dobronsky says afterwards . |
| 23 | Immediately noticeable is that Duplex now clearly identifies itself as an automated system , and says it will record the call - a line that stops it falling foul of California 's two - party consent law for monitoring phone calls . |
| 24 | At this point , the recipient of the call has the option to say “ I do n't want to be recorded ” - or words to that effect - and the system will hang up . |
| 25 | Moments later , a human operator working at one of Google 's locations will ring back and make the booking on the user 's behalf , and then opt out the business from receiving calls from Google Duplex in the future . |
| 26 | As well as stepping in when someone does n't want to be recorded , the human operator will also interrupt the call if the automated voice gets confused . |
| 27 | At the moment , that 's roughly one in every five calls , Google says - a level of intervention that , at scale , would be a huge strain on its resources . |
| 28 | The AI will need to get better if it 's to be something rolled out to Google users across the US and eventually beyond . |
| 29 | After Oren 's go , journalists were offered a chance to handle a call with Duplex . |
| 30 | Naturally , we all made an effort to break it . |
| 31 | Seung Lee , from the San Jose Mercury News , went through with the reservation before suddenly saying he 'd made a mistake and there was n't actually a table after all . |
| 32 | This floored Duplex , and the human operator picked up to finish the job . |
| 33 | For my turn , when Duplex asked me to make a reservation for a group of three , I curtly told it to go away as we only make bookings for four or more . |
| 34 | Without missing a beat , the voice replied : “ Oh , OK , cool . In that case , what 's the wait time ? ” |
| 35 | Unfortunately , Google did n't allow the BBC to record any of the calls . |
| 36 | The company had promised the BBC it would record the calls and provide the audio afterwards so it could be aired , but several hours after the event a spokesman said the company would n't be doing that after all . |
| 37 | Instead , it was suggested we air Google 's promotional video to show the “ full context ” . |
| 38 | With trust and transparency being two major hurdles facing widespread adoption and acceptance of AI , this over - controlling approach is arguably very short - sighted . |
| 39 | Nifty tricks |
| 40 | This kind of technology is often deeply divisive , for several reasons . |
| 41 | One , there 's apprehension about diving into a roboticised world where machines may soon outsmart us . |
| 42 | Second , we wonder : do we want to live in a world where people ca n't even be bothered to make a two - minute phone call to book a haircut ? |
| 43 | “ If for some reason the business does n't want to receive those appointments they can bow out , ” explained Scott Huffman , head of engineering for Google Assistant . |
| 44 | “ Really what you see is that people in these situations ... they want to get their appointment made , or whatever it is , and kind of get off the phone . ” |
| 45 | Google believes there are several use cases that justify the existence of Duplex . |
| 46 | The company points out that not everyone can make phone calls , for accessibility reasons . |
| 47 | It also suggests the possibility that you could one day use Duplex to ring up and book a table at a restaurant ... even if you do n't speak the local language . |
| 48 | A nifty trick to avoid tourist hotspots if you 're far from home . |
| 49 | But let 's be real . |
| 50 | What this technology really provides is yet another way for Google to automate the collection of useful data that is n't captured by its existing methods . |
| 51 | In the public trial it announced on Tuesday , the “ small selection ” of users will be able to use Duplex for the simple task of finding out if a restaurant is open or not during weekends or public holidays . |
| 52 | Right now , Google 's data set on this is patchy - Google Maps will show a message warning users that it may not have the right information . |
| 53 | Once someone prompts a Duplex call to find out , whatever answer the system receives from the human will instantly be placed into Google 's database , viewable to all . |
| 54 | Google sees that as a win - win . |
| 55 | It gets up - to - date information - without any legwork or expense on its part - and the restaurant , in theory , only takes one “ are you open tomorrow ? ” call . |