Google's Uncanny New Robot Could Book Your Next Haircut

I was in a Brooklyn restaurant the other week and overheard a young man -- definitely a millennial like myself -- arguing with an older couple, most likely his parents, about a variety of topics: healthcare, the point of full-time employment, phones. He really hates using the phone, and to prove just how unnecessary it's become, he pointed to Google Duplex. Google Duplex is a new AI assistant that performs tasks over the phone like booking a haircut or making a restaurant reservation, and its unveiling at Google's developer event in May made for what the Verge called "perhaps the most jaw-dropping moment" of CEO Sundar Pichai's keynote speech (skip ahead to 35:00). In a replay of a real phone conversation with a restaurant employee, a shockingly human-sounding robot booked a reservation, negotiating misunderstandings over the date and number of people without missing a beat. Pichai said at the time that Google Duplex was years in the making, and today, a fully functional version of the technology is still a ways off.