Rene Ritchie absolutely nails it with this take on Google Duplex and ethics. If you’ve not yet encountered Rene’s Vector podcast, this is an excellent first taste.
Interesting how on the exact same page we are. Rene’s concerns mirror my own.
The problem isn’t Duplex — It’s Google
Dave, have you taken a look at Adobe Voco? It takes this to the next level with seamless impersonation of voices based on very small samples. That seems even more open to nefarious use, especially when combined with off-the-shelf video “lip sync” software. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOpSV3ZcUcw
As with FB, increasing privacy and disclosure represents a very real threat to Google’s revenue model. That’s obvious.
Maybe less obvious is the fact that AI interactions provide an entirely new and timely data mining stream for a company like Google. It’s hard to imagine Google changing course radically. Same for the sentiment of the majority of shareholders.
To say the problem is Google in this case is to ignore the history of AI. Look up the Turing test. Look up the history of AI. Google didn’t invent the concept of Duplex. This reveals more than anything else how the technorati is increasingly ill qualified.
Google didn’t need to invent anything before its culture determined how easily they’d choose to exploit it.
You don’t get it. Many AI labs are doing something similar to Duplex.
So what? Google will do more than develop this. Likewise for too many of those other labs’ clients.
This technology could be of enormous help to many people, but instead its most frequent, profitable use will likely be to alienate, exploit, and sideline most of the rest of us instead.
My respect for Ritchie just increased.
I’ve started following Rene on YouTube. In a sea of puss the man is an island of reality.