Google Is Being Vague With Disclosure In Early Real-World Duplex Calls

A small group of Pixel owners in "select" U.S. cities are able to use Google's new Duplex feature to automatically make voice calls to restaurants and other businesses on their behalf. Referencing a demo from VentureBeat, The Verge notes that "the exchange between Duplex and a restaurant on the other side of the call is raising some early concerns about transparency." From the report: [Y]ou'll notice that Duplex never identifies itself as a robot. It never tells the person taking the call that they're interacting with an automated system. "Hi, I'm calling to make a reservation for a client. I'm calling from Google, so the call may be recorded," is what Duplex says to begin the conversation. And that little bit -- about the call coming "from Google" and potentially being recorded -- is the only disclosure that it ever provides. From then on, Duplex handles the requested dinner reservation smoothly.

This disclosure doesn't match up with a promotional video for Duplex that Google posted to YouTube back in June. In that example (embedded below), Duplex makes it very clear that it's a bot. "Hi, I'm the Google Assistant calling to make a reservation for a client. This automated call will be recorded." That's a much better approach. You're talking to the Google Assistant. It's an automated call, and it is being recorded; no maybes about it. The report notes that some Duplex calls -- such as the one VentureBeat included in their demo -- are actually handled by a human. "When a human operator at Google places a Duplex call, they don't necessarily disclose anything about Google Assistant or note it's an automated call," reports The Verge. "Because it's not. Not entirely, anyway. Google's Duplex tests involve a mix of the two; some are led by Googlers, while others let the AI steer. The majority of calls are the latter and automated, from what I'm told."

Hang right the fuck up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget that shit.

Re: Hang right the fuck up.

[mermeid007]

They want to get as many calls out before a deadline as they can because in the fine print that they will not share with you, they think they try to charge back the customer for the call

Re:

[sabbede]

Seems to me that's exactly the point. People hang up right away when they know it's not a real person on the other end.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

So a person with a disability using the same technology needs to out themselves first?

Re:It's good enough so stop whining.

[AmiMoJo]

It's an interesting philosophical question - is it somehow worse to be speaking to a machine than to a human being who has been assigned exactly the same task? If the machine is good enough it might not make a difference, and you might not even know.

I tend to agree with AC, it's not worth getting upset about. It also reminds me of arguments about not wanting to talk to other humans for various reasons, which lead to them being treated badly.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you like spam (the unsolicited email, not the spiced ham), go ahead and allow callers to shift the cost of handling calls entirely to you. They will not hesitate to have you called for minimal gain. This will kill the phone.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Fortunately in my country spam calls are illegal and the rules are enforced. I don't get spam calls or texts, and cost is irrelevant.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstood. The problem isn't that you will receive outright spam calls (that too, because who gives a flying fuck about the rules in your country). Automating calls changes the cost dynamic of phone calls. The recipient still bears the cost of handling the incoming calls, but the callers can call as often and for as little benefit as they want. It's not their own time they're wasting. There is a limit to the number of restaurants a person will call, so they will take the likelihood of getting a tabl

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

You still know where it's coming from so who cares. Unless you want to put the phone down and not generate business?

Some companies may want to not do business with automated services. After all, it is very easy to fake a robocall (as we all know). How long until people start attacking businesses with fake Google Assistant calls?

Say Bob doesn't like Papa Johns because their CEO said something racist. So Bob sets up a robocall to call every Papa Johns in the US with a fake Google Assistant order every day. That could cost them millions.

Say it isn't something as noble as attacking a racist corp. Say it's because the ow

Re:

[petermgreen]

Companies are going to want to decide if Computer Calls count as legitimate calls or not.

And ultimately that is going to come down to relative volumes. If most of the calls coming through this new google service are legitimate then companies will just tolerate the bullshit ones just like they tolerate bullshit from humans. If most of the calls coming through are time/money wasting bullshit then they will probablly start hanging up on them as soon as they hear the calls are from google.

The question will be can google open this service up so most normal people can use it while at the same time ex

Coming soon

[stealth_finger]

A service that will send someone you eat the food for you then come back and regurgitate it so you don't have to move off your lazy ass ever.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I'd use this for recruiters. They all ask the same stupid questions that were answered in my CV or on my profile page, so a robot could easily deal with them. It could also filter out the ones who don't understand the difference between C and C#, or Javascript and embedded.

Re:

[drewlake2000]

That's called McDonald's, they then sell you the regurgitated food, or so it appears....

Re:

[nukenerd]

Automating calls shifts the costs towards the callee.

I don't understand this, perhaps because I am not in the USA. Why/how does an automated call put the cost on the callee? I asked this quesion recently in a non-automated context and was told that only with mobile calls does some cost fall to the callee, and I don't understand why a robot making the call should make any difference.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

In a business setting, time taken to answer calls costs money. Personal calls just cost your time (just like spam email doesn't cost you anything but your time). It takes the callee time to answer the call, but unlike in a person-to-person call, it no longer takes the time of the "caller". This encourages the "caller" to have more calls made, which costs the callee more time and/or money. It's exactly the email spam dynamic.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Restaurants in some cities are already charging a cancellation fee. You can't make a reservation without a credit card. Here is an article from 2015. [nytimes.com] The practice of making reservations "just in case" will increase if you don't have to talk to the people you're going to stand up. People will also try restaurants where they have an extremely slim (i.e. non-existent) chance of getting a reservation and wouldn't bother to call if they had to do it themselves. You can just call all the restaurants where you wan

Re:

[exomondo]

In a business setting, time taken to answer calls costs money.

But assuming it's a customer, why does it make a difference whether the custom comes from a human caller, automated caller, email, whatever...?

Re:

[exomondo]

The comment wasn't just that one sentence. Try reading the rest.

Yes I did, if you want to make a reservation at a restaurant then why would the caller be making more calls than necessary? If the caller wants to purchase goods then why does it matter how that purchase is made wrt human vs robot caller? Of course time taken to answer a call costs money, but if you're making a sale then it's necessary to make money too. If you don't want the business then by all means hang up but I don't see why you would not want the business just because it was Duplex calling rather than

Re:

[exomondo]

Someone else already asked that and I already answered that. Do you have the attention span of a goldfish?

Read the thread, no you didn't.

Re:

[Parsiuk]

Or maybe there could be something, I don't know, like a website where we could see if there's anything free and book a table? Nah, that would be too easy..

Re:

[nukenerd]

I await the day that these restaurants and other places taking calls have their own automated assistants answering the calls

Indeed. Many of these systems are conceived on the premise that everyone in the world except the inventor himself is behind the curve, and will never move out of the Stone Age.

what is the problem again?

[sad_]

why do you have to know if you're talking to an AI or not?
i don't see how that even matters, i know people get worked up about it, but i don't know why.

Re:

[msauve]

...and robo-calls are nothing new. In fact, this seems better than many. At least it's honest, unlike a lot of the political ones which often start with something like "Hi, this is X Y, calling to urge you to support..." No, it isn't person X Y, it's a recording being played back by an automated dialer.

Re:

[nukenerd]

Well you just gave a reason why I'd like to know if it is a robot calling - because robot calls are not to be trusted.

Re:

[cascadingstylesheet]

why do you have to know if you're talking to an AI or not? i don't see how that even matters, i know people get worked up about it, but i don't know why.

Because they are engaging in fraudulent behavior.

They are pretending that a real human, presumably (or at any rate, possibly) with morals and feelings, is talking to you, but it's just a machine.

Re:

[frank_adrian314159]

How does this minor masquerade harm you? Why does unknowingly interacting with our new machine partners fill you with such loathing? Do you get worked up about answering machines, too? Luddite.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

How does this minor masquerade harm you? Why does unknowingly interacting with our new machine partners fill you with such loathing? Do you get worked up about answering machines, too? Luddite.

It's not the bot, it's the flakiness of the client.

Already restaurants are starting to not allow reservations because OpenTable and other things let clients book 5-10 restaurants and not show up. It's starting to cost restaurants real money since that table isn't revenue generating.

It's getting to the point where to r

Re:

[thegarbz]

They are pretending that a real human

They are doing nothing of the sort. They are just communicating in the way someone expects to communicate on a phone.

Cuts both ways?

[Xarius]

I've called lots of companies for various reasons. Almost always they have an automated IVR system up front, and never do they disclose that it isn't a human you're speaking to.

Granted, it's usually obvious very quickly that it's automated, but there's still no disclosure.

(I agree it should be disclosed though.)

Re:

[shilly]

All of those services I've ever used have been really fucking irritating: take forever to navigate through, laggy, struggling to interpret what I say correctly, and you typically have to repeat security info to the human you eventually do talk to. A shitty experience.

Fully disclosed. Its your fault.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Most people misspell the Google Dupelacs Service as Duplex and misunderstand the disclosure.

The disclosure is in the name.

Dupe (v) = to cheat, to mislead, to mulct

Lacs (n) (rhymes with packs) = A lot, very many, plethora, umpteen, innumerable, (from Hindi lac meaning one hundred thousand)

Solution:

[AndyKron]

Just hang up

What about 2 party consent?

[bagofbeans]

Is presuming 2 party consent ok?

Knowledge Navigator

[neilo_1701D]

This reminds me so much about John Sculley's Knowledge Navigator vanity project, which you can see here [youtube.com].

Interesting execution of the concept; but like so many others here I hang up on a automated call.

Telemarketers

[p51d007]

Just wait til the telemarketers get a hold of this somehow. They can just get rid of the 3rd world country people they hire and use this!