Alphabet Chairman: Google Duplex Passes the Turing Test “In a Limited Domain”

Alphabet Chairman and Former Stanford University President John Hennessy said yesterday that the AI voice technology system Google Duplex passes the Turing test in limited conditions. Duplex is an upcoming Google Assistant feature that can conduct simple telephone calls with humans, for example to make restaurant reservations or book an appointment at a hair salon. Google says the bot’s telephone manner is indistinguishable from humans.

“In the domain of making appointments, it passes the Turing test, which is an extraordinary breakthrough. It doesn’t pass it in the general terms, but it passes it in a very limited domain, and that’s really an indication of what’s coming,” said Hennessy, speaking at the Google Developer Conference I/O.

Check out the YouTube video of Hennessy’s speech below.

Journalist: Tony Peng| Editor: Michael Sarazen