"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," wrote sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. This week in Silicon Valley, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) proved it. Several times during CEO Sundar Pichai's keynote presentation at the company's I/O developer conference, the audience of 7,000 gasped or burst into applause. That's because some of Google's massive investments in artificial intelligence are now paying off--in features that truly are magical. And in an absolutely mind-frying demonstration, Google Assistant booked a haircut appointment by placing a phone call to a human receptionist at the salon and having a conversation on your behalf, sounding indistinguishable from a real person.

Or it's possibly the most disturbing thing you've seen. A computer, sounding like a human with'umms' and pauses a normal conversation would feature, getting a human to book an appointment. Apart from an army of personal assistants and executive assistants reaching to high-five Google, this move throws up some important issues for businesses. Let's play devil's advocate for a second, this robot can fool a human. Do the different parties have a right to know what is happening?

Google is no longer, at its core, a search engine. And its goal is not to help you find information, but to become an extension of your very self. That might sound alarmist or far-fetched--unless you watched Google I/O 2018, the company's annual developer conference, this week. The big takeaway from the conference is that the Google Assistant--think Alexa, but smarter--has displaced Google search as the company's central product, the one that binds all the others. Its scary-ambitious goal: To blur the line between human and machine to the point where they become literally indistinguishable.

GOOGLE on Tuesday unveiled an artificial intelligence tool capable of handling routine tasks - such as making restaurant bookings - as a way to help people disconnect from their smartphone screens. Kicking off the tech giant's annual developers conference, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai argued that its AI-powered digital assistant had the potential to free people from everyday chores. Mr Pichai played a recording of the Google Assistant independently calling a hair salon and a restaurant to make bookings - interacting with staff who evidently didn't realise they were dealing with artificial intelligence software, rather than a real customer. Tell the Google Assistant to book a table for four at 6pm, it tends to the phone call in a human-sounding voice complete with "ums" and "likes", and sends you a message with the details. "Our vision for our assistant is to help you get things done," Mr Pichai told the conference in Google's home town of Mountain View, California. "It turns out that a big part of getting things done is making a phone call."

In one of the most chilling technological demonstrations to date, the internet giant showed its digital assistant could mimic a human over the phone so convincingly the person on the other end of the line had no idea they were talking to a machine. In one demonstration, the artificially intelligent bot called a hairdresser and booked a haircut for its client. In another, the bot made a restaurant reservation after inquiring about wait times to a worker oblivious she was speaking to a computer. The company unveiled the technology this week at its annual developers conference, Google I/O, alongside other artificially intelligent additions that could write emails and drive cars and generally cut humans out of the picture. If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch the controversial demo below: Zeynep Tufekci, a technologist and associate professor at the University of North Carolina who regularly dispels the benevolent aura of the tech giants for The New York Times, has lashed out at Google's latest showcase experiment.

Google unveiled Tuesday an artificial intelligence tool capable of handling routine tasks--such as making restaurant bookings--as a way to help people disconnect from their smartphone screens. Kicking off the tech giant's annual developers conference, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai argued that its AI-powered digital assistant had the potential to free people from everyday chores. Pichai played a recording of the Google Assistant independently calling a hair salon and a restaurant to make bookings--interacting with staff who evidently didn't realize they were dealing with artificial intelligence software, rather than a real customer. Tell the Google Assistant to book a table for four at 6:00 pm, it tends to the phone call in a human-sounding voice complete with "ums" and "likes," and sends you a message with the details. "Our vision for our assistant is to help you get things done," Pichai told the conference in Google's hometown of Mountain View, California.

Match Group, which also owns dating apps OkCupid, Match.com and Plenty of Fish, reported a profit of $99.74 million for the quarter ended March 31, compared with a profit of $20.05 million a year earlier. Analysts had projected profit of $56 million, according to a survey by FactSet. Revenue increased to $407.37 million, from $298.76 million a year ago. Analysts had forecast $386 million in revenue. Revenue at Tinder increased more than 150% compared with a year ago.

Schlage announced today that users of its Sense and Connect smart locks will now be able to unlock them with Alexa. Users have been able to lock and check the status of their smart deadbolts with Amazon's digital assistant since October, but unlocking them still required a phone. Now Sense and Connect owners can use any Alexa-enabled device to unlock their doors for them. The feature will have to be enabled -- it's disabled by default for security purposes -- through the Amazon Alexa app and users will be required to create a PIN in order to use the feature. That PIN has to be spoken before Alexa can unlock the door and three wrong attempts will cause the voice control feature to be disabled.

The Google Assistant--the all-knowing digital voice that reverberates throughout the house every time you ask your Google Home a question--is about to get a lot smarter. This week at Google I/O (a developer's conference), Google detailed some of the new abilities coming to its digital assistant platform, which lives inside smartphones, smart speakers, and various other connected devices. The Google Assistant is on its way to becoming more conversational and easier to use, and it's even coming to the screen later this summer. You can try some of these features right now, but not all of its new abilities are available to the public just yet. And there's one feature in particular that might leave you feeling like it's a little ahead of its time.

Google has unveiled an artificial intelligence tool capable of handling routine tasks -- such as making restaurant bookings -- as a way to help people disconnect from their smartphone screens. Kicking off the tech giant's annual developers conference, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai argued that its AI-powered digital assistant had the potential to free people from everyday chores. Pichai played a recording of the Google Assistant independently calling a hair salon and a restaurant to make bookings -- interacting with staff who evidently didn't realize they were dealing with artificial intelligence software, rather than a real customer. Tell the Google Assistant to book a table for four at 6:00 pm, it tends to the phone call in a human-sounding voice complete with "ums" and "likes," and sends you a message with the details. "Our vision for our assistant is to help you get things done," Pichai told the conference in Google's hometown of Mountain View, California.