Questions and criticism immediately arose following the unveil of Google Duplex at I/O 2018, with Google quickly clarifying some of the worrying user-facing aspects. More details have now emerged following the company’s weekly all-hands meeting.
According to Bloomberg, Googlers yesterday afternoon received a demo of Google Duplex at the weekly TGIF meeting open to all employees. The long-running tradition allows teams to share news, while making executives available to answer questions. It’s unclear whether that demo was actually live or if it featured just more examples of recent recordings.
Meanwhile, along with the “full Duplex demo,” executives at the company shared more details about features the system would adopt before a public launch.
Google reiterated that Assistant would explicitly identify itself at the top of the call rather than just say it was calling on behalf of a user. This language is more exact than last week’s acknowledgement that the system would be “appropriately identified.”
The company also expanded on the legalities associated with the functionality. In certain states, the Assistant will inform the person its calling that they are being recorded in order to abide by two-party consent laws. Such rules exist in 11 states, including Google’s home of California.
Today’s report also clarifies the drama around last week’s on-stage demos. According to Bloomberg, the recordings shared at I/O were edited “to protect the identity of the businesses involved.” Axios earlier this week noted how the two examples were somewhat unrealistic given that the businesses and human employees did not first identify themselves to Google.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments