Google's Duplex Uses A.I. to Mimic Humans (Sometimes)

"It sounded very real," Mr. Tran said in an interview after hanging up the call with Google. Google later confirmed, to our disappointment, that the caller had been telling the truth: He was a person working in a call center. The company said that about 25 percent of calls placed through Duplex started with a human, and that about 15 percent of those that began with an automated system had a human intervene at some point. We tested Duplex for several days, calling more than a dozen restaurants, and our tests showed a heavy reliance on humans. Among our four successful bookings with Duplex, three were done by people.