Google's creepy AI phone call feature will disclose it's a robot after ethics backlash

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Google Duplex, the human-sounding AI assistant that can make phone calls for you, stunned us when it was demoed earlier this week.

While impressive, Duplex has also received backlash in the past few days, leaving Google to stress about transparency in the technology, reports CNET.

SEE ALSO: Google's AI Assistant can now make real phone calls and it's frightening to listen to

"We are designing this feature with disclosure built-in, and we'll make sure the system is appropriately identified," a Google spokesperson said in a statement via email.

"What we showed at I/O was an early technology demo, and we look forward to incorporating feedback as we develop this into a product."

It's unclear how Google intends to make those disclosures. As per Google's demo, which involved the AI assistant making a supposedly real call to book an appointment at a hair salon, there was no indication the call was from a computer.

And unlike the voices of current AI assistants which give off their robot origins, Duplex sounded natural. The use of speech disfluencies, like the "ums" and "hmms" in the call, and the small delays in conversation accurately mimics human speech.
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That led to criticism by the likes of technology sociologist Zeynep Tufekci, who described the AI assistant "ethically lost" on Twitter, given the use of computers to deceive real humans by sounding like them.

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