Google’s creepy / awesome Duplex AI feature becomes widely available in most US states

Last year, Google blew our minds at I/O by introducing the new Google Duplex. A new feature of the Google Assistant AI, which can screen calls for you and even initiate calls to book reservations at places like a restaurant or a hairdresser’s saloon. The Assistant sounded natural and human-like, if only a bit off with the way it communicated. But it was fully capable of communicating well enough to make a reservation for specific hours and answer questions regarding the reservation.

The tech community was both awe-struck and terrified. The technology behind the feature is astounding for sure. Yet, having an AI fool someone that it’s a living, breathing human being raised some moral questions.

Google promised that, going forward, the Google Assistant will always first inform the person it is calling that it’s speaking to an AI and then proceed with its task. Then, it made Duplex available for a select number of Pixel 3 owners in a few cities, as a test run.

Now, the company is ready to expand Duplex’ reach. The feature has been pushed to all Pixel phones across 43 US states. But that’s not all — in the coming weeks, Google says, it will make it available to other Android phones and even iPhones!

Duplex itself is still only limited to making restaurant reservations — no other types of businesses are reported yet. Also, there’s no mention of the Call Screening feature, so we believe that’s still only exclusive to Pixels.

Well… will you be using the Assistant to make your reservations going forward, or are you perfectly fine with making the call on your own?