If the shop owner gets a duplex system to field the calls, then the two robots can subtly signal to the other they aren't actually human, and then start shrieking like a 9600 baud modem to finish the dialog.
The entire process of fielding calls is terrible. You never know what's waiting for you when you pick up the phone. Could be someone with a terrible attitude that wants to take it out on you. I had coworkers who got PTSD, and a ringing phone would trigger it.
I would rather talk to a rational robot on the phone than a possibly irate human who, frankly, only wants something transactional from you and treats you like a robot.
First because it will fail a lot, as robot won't understand specifics such as what items on the menu do you want, oh but it's missing, do you want this instead.
And then you will multiply commercial calls, and spam mails will arrive on the phone.
Then people will abuse it to harass, annoy, attack competition, etc. Spam a restaurant with robot phone calls for a month and it's done.
Plus google will analyse all this data, because it doesn't know enough about you.
It's a nigthmare.
But it will be excellent for anybody with social skills. What i learn living in africa is that we became handicaped because we can avoid talking to other humans so much. Going back to france, my social, sexual and work life improved a lot because i had basically zero competition. The next generations will really suck at the game.
For example, I was kept on hold for 2 hours the other day to try and sort out being double charged on my bankcard. If this sort of service can handle hold, then i'm in.
would be funny if it didn't and somehow blew the phone system's stack.
I would feel infuriated to have to talk to a robot making me waste my time. At least during a waiting song I can put the speakers on and do something else.
Honestly, the degree to which telephone calls are still necessary in day to day life is absurd. If this hastens their demise then I'm all for it.
Coding flexibility in a website is incredibly hard.
Think about it. A restaurant doesn't have anything veggie on the menu, a last minute guest arrives and is veggie. You call to ask if there is something that can be done.
It's possible to code that, but it's a lot of work to get all the scenarios right.
In the case of a restaurant, having their menu online would make it so you knew in advance of the restaurant has something you can eat. Lots of restaurants still don't do even this.
I see this as leveling the playing field -- upper middle class people can already afford real assistants a la Tim Ferris; this just lets everyone access it.
I try to automate tasks that don't use my strengths or bring me joy and this would be a huge win in that area.
BTW AI's can also solve status problems: http://partiallyclips.com/comic/dome-house/
"Hi there, I'd like to schedule an appointment" "Are you suuuure?" SCCREEECH KSHHH...
So a simple “hello” contains a subliminal audio signature that basically is code for “I am a robot. Are you a robot? Feel free to beep bop”
Machine B responds with a greeting exactly 1.32 seconds long, with a 1.32 second pause after it.
Machine A responds with a sentence in which the first word is exactly 1.32 seconds long.
Machine B considers the handshake a success and proceeds in machine language.
Surely someone out there is doing audio steganography by modulating the volume/duration of "silence".
And did you hear the recordings? The AI is better at conversation than the humans it had to deal with. I would gladly use this to avoid talking to people who can't parse a plain sentence without rounds of repetition and clarification.
The wealthy will largely continue employing humans to do tasks for them, because they can. It will be just another form of luxury / status. An AI assistant will be considered beneath their class. The technology will be nearly universal and extremely inexpensive, two things rich people dislike as it pertains to signaling their status.
Then a few seconds after that the Singularity starts.
The wealthy will employ AI the moment it can do the same tasks as a human, unlike humans the AI is cheap, doesn't take time of work, always available, never tired or grumpy, etc. The maintenance work of having an AI worker vs a human worker is just way lower.
The moment a corporation like McDonalds can replace the entire staff with robots without having a dip in efficiency they will do that. 24/7 operation would be linearly more costly to 9-5 weekday operation.
I don't want to have to interact with a human because the only time a company makes me interact with a human is when they think it benefits them (upsell, make leaving difficult, etc.).
What I want are good ways for me to handle this stuff via computer without human interaction.
> Duplex can only carry out natural conversations after being deeply trained in such domains.
The question becomes - How many people will really have the time and money to actually collect data to allow Duplex to take over. It might be true for large call centers but difficult at individual level.
Arguable to some extent
>> new economic creation
This is a dependent variable
>> As populations decline and population growth stagnates
Another
I get it, this is the way its supposed to work, but we cannot just guarantee it.
Anyone who can afford the cheapest Android phone is not exactly upper middle class