IEEE Future Directions
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Google has announced an improved “smart reply” service that could take care of answering mails on your behalf (you can watch the announcement in the keynote video, at minute 7. 50″). The service is available on your smart phone/ both Android and IOS.
It is improved thanks to machine learning technology that follows your way of answering and mimics it with more and more accuracy.
When you receive an email “smart reply” will suggest you 3 answers and you can pick up one with just a click (or decide none would do and write your own reply).
Good service indeed, but… are we just making the first steps towards a virtual communications?
Yes, this is just a help to make your answer quicker, but how far are we from a system that would automatically reply? It is not difficult to imagine that you’ll get used to this “facility” and start to click immediately on one of the answer. The “smart reply” will learn more and more about you and eventually will be able to reply without you having to click, with great accuracy. Then you will entertain a virtual conversation, managed by your “alter ego”, the digital one created by a smart software. And, of course, what is happening at your side will be potentially be mirrored at the other side, with a software answering back. Are we heading towards a conversation between two virtual humans that over time have learnt to approximate the real ones to the point that the real ones become irrelevant?
Clearly, it looks like science fiction but I feel we are seeing the beginning of a slippery slope.
I have already seen in the US love cards pre-filled with sentences for you to tick. Never used one and I am still wondering who can make use of those. On the other hand, if these cards are there, there’s probably a market for them.
Now, this “smart reply” makes me think about those, probably just a sign that I am too old for the digital world!
