Google's 'deceitful' AI assistant to identify itself as a robot during calls

Google's AI assistant will identify itself as a robot when calling up businesses on behalf of human users, the company has confirmed, following accusations that the technology was deceitful and unethical. The feature, called Google Duplex, was demonstrated at the company's I/O developers' conference on Tuesday. It is not yet a finished product, but in the two demos played for the assembled crowd, it still managed to be eerily lifelike as it made bookings at a hair salon and a restaurant. But the demonstrations sparked concern that the company was misleading those on the other end of the conversation into thinking they were dealing with another human, not a machine. The generated voice not only sounds extremely natural, but also inserts lifelike pauses, um-ing and ah-ing, and even responding with a wordless "mmm-hmm" when asked by the salon worker to "give me one second".