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Google's Controversial Voice Assistant Could Talk Its Way Into Call Centers (theinformation.com)
More details have emerged about where Google intends -- or at least intended until a few weeks ago -- to take its controversial AI Duplex, which it first demonstrated to the public at its developer conference in May. The AI system is capable of making calls to local businesses to place reservations on behalf of Google Assistant users. And it does so in a voice that most people can't distinguish from that of a normal human being. This resulted in a public outcry at the implication of people in the future not knowing whether they were talking to humans or machines, which led Google to adapt the bot's introduction so it clearly explains it's not a human. The Information reports: Some big companies are in the very early stages of testing Google's technology for use in other applications, such as call centers, where it might be able to replace some of the work currently done by humans [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], according to a person familiar with the plans. The market for cloud-based customer call center market is expected to hit more than $20.9 billion by 2022, up from around $6.8 billion last year, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets. [...] At least one potential customer, a large insurance company, is looking at ways it can use the technology, according to the person with knowledge of the project, including for call centers where the voice assistant could handle simple and repetitive customer calls while humans step in when the conversations get more complicated. But the ethical concerns that overshadowed the original presentation have slowed work on the project, this person said.
Cheaper Cold Calls equals more Cold Calls.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The big pushback i could see is that people generally don't like talking to a bot.
If the AI identifies itself as a machine, a nontrivial number of people are going to immediately hang up on inbound calls they're receiving.
Can it replace Lenny, on the other side of the call centres?
Sig ?
They already have bots when you call in to many customer service lines, they're just not as slick and don't pretend to be a human. If this works better than those do, it certainly won't be any worse than the status quo.
Ask Piccard
MOD THE CHILD UP!
> simple and repetitive customer calls while humans step in when the conversations get more complicated
Would not want to be the human csa when the call gets to that stage, because you're likely to be talking to a really frustrated and pissed off customer after explaining their problem to the AI for the umpteenth time.
So this article went in a different way than I assumed based on the headline.
I had interpreted it as being able to tell Google Assistant "Hey, call Comcast Tech support and get them to fix my internet" (which, of course, you'd ask Google Assistant on your phone, since your home internet is broken) and then just forget about it until you get a message from Google the next day saying "I spent 15 hours on hold and went through twelve layers of tech support escalation, but finally found someone who wasn't a moron and your internet should be working now."
And I'm just saying that's the kind of technology that I'd love to see come out of Google.
Of course, the danger for Google is that people will figure out that they can say "OK Google, call YouTube and find out why my video got demonetized.", but I get the impression that Google is big enough that they've passed that threshold of "The right hand doesn't know which foot the left is shooting."
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it cannot do so without your help. You are not helping. Why?
... and see how he/she/it reacts.