You know what is google duplex? We have all talked to a machine at some point, when an answering machine answers us or with Ok Google, Siri, Cortana. But what if this machine talked to us as if it were a human being?
This is what it offers us Google Duplex, an artificial intelligence technology so impressive, that you get to wonder who is the human and who the machine.
What is Google Duplex? The technology that speaks to us
Google Duplex, a totally natural result
The test with which Google showed us its new technology, showed a person asking for an appointment at a hairdresser. The result was very natural, so that it seemed that it was a person who attended us. You can see the result in the following video. At minute 35:20, he already comments on this technology and shows a test, all in English, at Google I/O 2018:
As you can see, the machine spoke totally like a human being, even pausing in doubt and knowing when the other person interrupted him and why. There was practically no difference with a call in which it is a human being who attends us.
This technology is specially designed for small businesses that cannot afford to hire someone just to answer phone calls. In this way, it could be a machine that answers for it, without causing any type of rejection in the client.
Brain-based technology
Google Duplex is a technology based on a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), in which the machine has a structure similar to the one that causes the functioning of our brain. Will it be Skynet?
It also uses a Google technology called ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition), specially designed to recognize not only what the user is saying, but also the context. The system had to be trained on different types of phone calls, until it gave a good result.
One of the most interesting points of Google Duplex are the pauses, the moments in which the machine makes sounds like Umm, Aham and others. These little details are what can make us feel as if we were talking to a person, instead of a machine. And precisely its naturalness is what makes this technology ideal for small businesses.
Designed for service reservations
Although the system is designed to have fully autonomous conversations without any human intervention, the reality is that it cannot adequately respond to personal conversations. Its function is to attend to reservations for something, such as the aforementioned example of the hairdresser or a restaurant. As we have mentioned, it is a technology designed especially for small businesses. It would be the perfect answering machine for a reservation center.
We do not know if in the future, Google Duplex will become a technology capable of listening to our weekend stories or will remain in a purely professional tool. What do you think that Google Duplex will soon make us talk to machines naturally? We invite you to tell us about it in the comments section at the end of this post.
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