Last week I watched a youtube video about Google I/O 2018 conference. It was a video about how Google assistant made appointments for a client. The video showed a very advanced Google assistant anticipating on answering given. At the same time, a few days before I saw our CTO and our Technology director have discussions with Alexa while doing demos. It got me thinking about something, robots are on the move. Just wanted to share my thoughts, see what you think of them.
If you want to see the Google I/O video, here it is. I had a laugh and was seeing the assistant (even though it is not human), get frustrated with the answers.
The coolness of this is not what I was thinking about, it’s more to do with some checks we encounter every day.
I’m not a robot
I’m sure all of you did come across the “I’m not a robot” checks on pages, daily even perhaps. Some of them are too simple to be true. Mark the checkbox and you’ve proven not to be a robot. Some are harder, you need to find all stores or road signs. They might even be hard for some humans when do I see enough road sign to qualify it as a road sign. I’m a little autistic so the question has to be specific, no room for guessing.
This one is the basic one, rather simple and good enough to keep some robots out I guess.
These are harder, select storefronts or select street signs. Are they sure a flag is a street sign? So they challenge us to make sure some malware or script is not signing up pretending they are human. That’s all fine, I’m very keen on getting bots and other crap of our Internet but there with the rise of Alexa and Google assistant possibilities I had some thoughts on this.
Are they trustworthy?
What if I ask Google Assistant or Alexa to book my flight, to check my email? Are they considered to be a robot by our standards or are those boundaries blurring? Are they becoming friends with us?
Do I ask Google Assistant or Alexa to lie for me? Are they capable of doing so, being just a bad as us human? I asked Alexa as she intervenes in our conversations at home anyway and she didn’t know. So will we add a button that says “I’m a robot” so that she can search for the optimal flight and book my trip to Re-invent or Synergy?
Beside ethical what about legal issues?
Furthermore if they book a hotel for us, order something on Amazon, am I legally bound by that? Is what they do directly transferrable on me? It’s, of course, a different topic but if they get so advanced (and I love it but I’m a geek), they could decide I need a week of and book me a hotel. A no-show could cost me money as they for sure didn’t consult my boss for that.
Just things you think about when travelling for 15hr or so… I’m gonna discuss this with Alexa and I’m interested in your thoughts on this.
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