Google Duplicitous

I can’t recall the last time I was so creeped out by a technology as I am by Google Duplex—the AI that can make reservations over the phone by pretending to be a human.

I’m not sure what’s disturbing me more: the technology itself, or the excited reaction of tech bros who can’t wait to try it.

Thing is …when these people talk about being excited to try it, I’m pretty sure they are only thinking of trying it as a caller, not a callee. They aren’t imagining that they could possibly be one of the people on the other end of one of those calls.

The visionaries of technology—Douglas Engelbart, J.C.R Licklider—have always recognised the potential for computers to augment humanity, to be bicycles for the mind. I think they would be horrified to see the increasing trend of using humans to augment computers.

Kumiho. — Ethan Marcotte

Ethan shares my reaction to Google Duplex:

Frankly, this technology was designed to deceive humans.

And he points out that the team’s priorities are very revealing:

I’ll say this: it’s telling that matters of transparency, disclosure, and trust weren’t considered important for the initial release.

Google Duplex and the canny rise: a UX pattern – UX Collective

Chris weighs up the ethical implications of Google Duplex:

The social hacking that could be accomplished is mind-boggling. For this reason, I expect that having human-sounding narrow AI will be illegal someday. The Duplex demo is a moment of cultural clarity, where it first dawned on us that we can do it, but with only a few exceptions, we shouldn’t.

But he also offers alternatives for designing systems like this:

1. Provide disclosure, and
2. Design a hot signal:

…design the interface so that it is unmistakeable that it is synthetic. This way, even if the listener missed or misunderstood the disclosure, there is an ongoing signal that reinforces the idea. As designer Ben Sauer puts it, make it “Humane, not human.”