Within the past day, Google has released Google Duplex and a new way to interact or instead not interact with companies to book appointments using the power of the google assistant. The new feature has many different pros and unfortunate consequences.
Google has already addressed various privacy concerns such as the assistant not announcing what it was during recorded conversations. Another reason for the privacy concerns comes from the way that google duplex works, as it simulates a human in their communication patterns even going so far as adding "ums" and pauses to its sentences, so much so that it becomes difficult to tell human from machine.
However, the main question is whether you the consumer is willing to cut off all social interaction with these phone calls, on one side it is certainly beneficial to truly have your own “Virtual Assistant.” However, it can be a slippery slope in regards to actual social interaction, and we as humans need to make sure that we don’t get so caught up in our excitement for the newest technology that we lose part of our humanity in the process.
Currently, this new feature of the google assistant is only available on Pixel devices and in most states (43 of them) and Google intends on making this service available to all types of iPhone and Android phones shortly and extending coverage to the remaining states that do not yet have google duplex.
For more information on this topic please refer to these articles
https://www.pcmag.com/news/367007/need-a-reservation-google-duplex-can-do-it-in-43-states
https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/06/google-duplex-voice-call-roll-out-us-restaurant-reservations/