Robo Calling
Your Master’s voice may be the next voice you hear. Google just announced it has developed a robot that can mimic to perfection the quirks, halts, slang and cadence of us humans. To prove it they had their automaton call up a restaurant to make a reservation. The machine responded to the restaurant’s questions, asked a few of its own and if you didn’t know who was on the line, you’d never guess the caller wasn’t part of our species. Another machine called for a hair appointment, same drill, different gender for the voice, same result. You just listened to the future.
Siri, Alexi, roll over, let Beethoven give you the news. Now when you get a phone call, that pleasant voice without the Pakistani drawl will sound as familiar as your Uncle John’s. I know, this is comforting news. No more garbled conversations with outsourced help lines in India, just clear enunciated solicitations, surveys, scams and advertisements from companies utilizing robotic ventriloquy. Google thought enough of the technology to parade it out for the listening public even in the midst of an outcry concerning fake news, Russian bots, Artificial Intelligence warnings and robotic outsourcing of human jobs. Wring your hands if you want, the overlords of android production could care less.
This week another corporation, Boston Dynamics, trotted out a video showing their robot running and jumping through what looks like Terminator or a Star Wars storm trooper traversing a field next to a suburb, nothing to get alarmed by if you were picking up the Sunday paper on your front porch and this mechanoid was jogging by. Just a cute robot sprinting across your lawn. Wait a few weeks and it will holler out a greeting with a southern accent, how y’all this mawning?
Once future shock has abated enough for you to accustom yourself to sharing the planet with artificial inhabitants, maybe then I’ll let you in on who is really writing these blogs. Have a nice day, y’all.
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Tags: android voice-over, Terminator salesmen