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Google Won't Confirm If Its Human-Like AI Actually Called a Salon To Make an Appointment As Demoed at I/O (axios.com)
The headline demo at Google's I/O conference earlier this month continues to be a talking point in the industry. The remarkable demo, which saw Google Assistant call a salon to successfully fix an appointment, continues to draw skepticism. News outlet Axios followed up with Google to get some clarifications only to find that the company did not wish to talk about it. From the report: What's suspicious? When you call a business, the person picking up the phone almost always identifies the business itself (and sometimes gives their own name as well). But that didn't happen when the Google assistant called these "real" businesses. Axios called over two dozen hair salons and restaurants -- including some in Google's hometown of Mountain View -- and every one immediately gave the business name.
Axios asked Google for the name of the hair salon or restaurant, in order to verify both that the businesses exist and that the calls were not pre-planned. We also said that we'd guarantee, in writing, not to publicly identify either establishment (so as to prevent them from receiving unwanted attention). A longtime Google spokeswoman declined to provide either name.
We also asked if either call was edited, even perhaps just cutting the second or two when the business identifies itself. And, if so, were there other edits? The spokeswoman declined comment, but said she'd check and get back to us. She didn't.
Axios asked Google for the name of the hair salon or restaurant, in order to verify both that the businesses exist and that the calls were not pre-planned. We also said that we'd guarantee, in writing, not to publicly identify either establishment (so as to prevent them from receiving unwanted attention). A longtime Google spokeswoman declined to provide either name.
We also asked if either call was edited, even perhaps just cutting the second or two when the business identifies itself. And, if so, were there other edits? The spokeswoman declined comment, but said she'd check and get back to us. She didn't.
Where is the SEC? If someone knew this was BS intended to move the price and sold stock...felony.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
However you feel about MS, they famously didn't rig demos. I mean, it resulted in a BSOD for Gates onstage at CES, but they didn't rig them.
And, frankly, a pre-recorded demo (as opposed to a highly tested demo) is pretty deceptive. Or would you like to invest in my business. I'll show you it correctly predicting stock prices 10 minutes in advance. Of course, I recorded it yesterday...
Your ad here. Ask me how!
However you feel about MS, they famously didn't rig demos.
All the Kinect demos, Holo Lens demos, etc. were fake as fuck.
Even your standard "Some devs / media whores play the game live" demos are typically staged. They literally have meat puppets on stage holding a controller and pretending to play the game and pretending to react to it, while a video of the alleged gameplay is shown on the giant screens behind them.
Why would two robots talk on the phone in English, then they can talk REST?
REST is the web kids applying the long lived Unix philosophy of 'everything is a file' to web servers and pretending they are the first to think of it. Not a bad concept, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth everytime I hear it as it feels like it dismisses the folks who had that sorted out long age.
Also, why would two robots talk in REST, when that design is more for the humans, not for the software. Software is perfectly happy with much more efficient representations of data, so long as both ends agree upon a vocabulary up front, but it would have to do that for REST as well anyway.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.