Here come the Johnny Cabs (18 May, 2018)

[aardvark_admin]

This column is archived at: https://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2018/0518.shtml

Have Google been "stretching" the truth with their demo of an AI bot making an appointment at a hair dressing salon over the phone?

Did they break California law to do so?

And if we're that far down the road with synthetic human technology and self-drive cars, how long before the streets are filled with Johnny Cabs instead of Ubers?

[hagfish]

The attendees at these developer conferences are often very gung-ho about the technologies they are working on. They are wrestling with technical problems, and - given time, effort and processing muscle - these problems inevitably yield to technical solutions. "Look at our cool thing!" Then their tech gets loosed on the real world...

Last year, Adobe released [EDIT: demoed - it's not yet released] 'Voco', which can 'listen' to a few samples of someone's voice, and then you can type in whatever you want, and that person's voice will 'say' it. The audience were all, 'woooo', but I found it quite chilling. Horrifying, even.

Provided the solution is within the realm of physics, technical hurdles get cleared eventually. The social/political/commercial problems are much more intractable. That's where regulations come in; an AI must identify itself. Recipients must opt-in. Contracts entered into with an AI are not binding (on the human) until ratified in some way. That kind of thing. Because 'bad actors' will be looking at the last few years' conference proceedings of Apple, Google, Adobe, Facebook, Amazon and salivating.

[granada29]

It's clear that the "bot" used by Google in its demo would pass the Touring Test with flying colours and would fool virtually anyone who was the other party in such a conversation. What does that mean for the future?

That should probably be 'Turing' - I'm not sure what a 'Touring Test' is. Spell correct strikes again is my guess

[aardvark_admin]

It's clear that the "bot" used by Google in its demo would pass the Touring Test with flying colours and would fool virtually anyone who was the other party in such a conversation. What does that mean for the future?

That should probably be 'Turing' - I'm not sure what a 'Touring Test' is. Spell correct strikes again is my guess

Damn, one should never rely on a spell-checker!!!

Gosh, I'm pretty sure that after that mistake, I'm qualified to be a Journalist at Stuff.co.nz

[phill]

nope
you know there was a turing not touring anymore
and they would be wondering who two ring was

[latewings]

Gosh, I'm pretty sure that after that mistake, I'm qualified to be a Journalist at Stuff.co.nz

Hmm, do you know how to make ice cubes?