Soon, You Won't Even Know If You're Talking to a Robot

A cop doesn't have to tell you they're a cop, but should a robot have to tell you they're a robot? If you aren't worried about it yet, maybe you should be.

Today at its annual developer conference, Google showed off a jaw-dropping demo of "Google Duplex," a feature where the AI-powered Google Assistant will call actual real humans at real businesses to do things like make appointments and schedule dinner reservations for you. The examples are assuredly cherry-picked examples of the AI's absolute peak performance, but they're impressive nonetheless.

This is obviously a dream come true for those of us who detest picking up the phone, and while it seems like it would be polite for Google Assistant to announce its true nature as a robot, this particular flavor of deception is pretty small fry. But of course that isn't where the possibilities end.

There's already a prevalent robocall scam designed to trick its victims into saying 'yes' with the goal of using that clip to authorize fraudulent charges. It's not too hard to imagine how a more sophisticated and fluid AI caller might be able to extract audio clips or personal information in a more nuanced way, all with the victim being none the wiser.

On the other hand, this sort of tech could also be pointed back at human scammers, to keep them bogged down in calls designed only to waste their time. All this, combined with advances in audio editing that let software synthesize speech in virtually any voice, open a whole Pandora's box of possibilities.