Google Duplex might be a milestone in Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has been around for decades and we all, at some point, have spoken to a customer service computer. And every time we did so, we were very well aware of talking to a ‘robot’ as it never sounded like a real human being. You could hear the strange intonation of random words being pasted together saying: ‘The next train to Amsterdam is leaving at 8.30pm’. You would make sure you’d speak clearly so your ‘Amsterdam’ wouldn’t be confused with ‘Azerbaijan’. Even up to know, there is a strange kind of satisfaction in Siri giving you a list of massage places when you are asking for the nearest Thai restaurant. It’s a confirmation that there isn’t a human being living in your phone. But now there’s Google Duplex. Thursday 8 May Google’s CEO showed examples of calls made by Google’s virtual assistant making appointments that sound creepily like a real person, up to the ‘uhm’ and ‘hmmm’. It seems like massive amounts of human conversations have been organized and anal...