[infurl]

This is a really impressive tech demo of Google's soon to be released new AI technology. On the face of it, it's quite mind-blowing, though I wonder how many trial conversations they've had that didn't turn out well, and how long we'll really have to wait until Google Assistant can do this. Also, bear in mind that in the second conversation, although the human sounds dumb, she wasn't a native English speaker. Maybe a more perceptive or capable AI would have picked up on that and switched to Spanish. Still a very exciting development though.

[infurl]

A day later there has been a huge backlash against the Google Duplex demonstration with numerous social justice warriors proclaiming that it is wrong for a machine to deceive a human being. No mention anywhere about how it is wrong for human beings to deceive human beings though. <cough>marketing, politics</cough> Google seems to have been prepared for this and has stated that there won't be any "unmarked" artificial intelligences deployed in reality and that they're still figuring out how to use the technology in the most ethical and transparent way. Well played Google. Personally I'd rather talk to a machine than most human beings.

[Art]

Seems that anything and everything is acceptable until it affects someone who didn't think it would ever affect THEM!!

No one complains about the pothole on Main Street until they run into it with their car, at which time it is a Public Nuisance and needs to be fixed immediately!

Bad things are always OK as long as they affect the other guy (person/people).

Human nature is what it is. Funny that!

[LOCKSUIT]

they can say "This is an AI calling on behalf of someone, ""beep""..."Hello, my name is AI"

[Art]

On the other hand it the voice is as perfect as it purports to be, there would really be no need to explain that it is an A.I. at all.

After all, isn't that the beauty of the "A.I. experience"? More human than human? 

[WriterOfMinds]

If my AI assistant is speaking on my behalf, then I'm not sure why the person on the other end needs to know that it is not, strictly speaking, me.  This would matter if one were (for some reason) conducting a friendship or romantic relationship via phone, but I don't see how it matters for routine business transactions.

[LOCKSUIT]

oh, also how is it deceiving someone into believing they're talking to a real human when it is almost now like a human? Good! That's right, it is almost human!