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Ask HN: Is Google recording our calls for Google duplex?

37 points by chintanb 8y ago

Is google recording our every call to train their AI models for google duplex ? e.g. "Mm-hmm"

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
My impression is Google's lawyers are not dumb enough to let Google publicly announce they're illegally recording calls in a two-party consent state: Presumably their demos were recorded with permission or staged. But I was definitely curious how they could operate Duplex without running afoul of existing laws. It's possible Google believes they are not "recording" the call when they send audio to and from their AI. They may be transcribing calls to text, which arguably isn't "call recording", it is just writing down verbatim what was said in the call. They likely have enough voice data from other sources, like Google Assistant on people's phones and Google Home that they can avoid recording calls explicitly.
- chintanb 8y ago
  I agree that they might be "writing down" the call. Is it legal ? or We accidentally signed up for this when we are using android phones
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  I don't think that's actually your phone doing the call.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    No, but the issue is, in many places it would be illegal for Google to record a call where they called someone else.
- patmcc 8y ago
  >>Google publicly announce they're illegally recording calls in a two-party consent state Why wouldn't they just run these tests in a one-party consent jurisdiction? From a quick google only 12 states are two-party. Nothing about the demo indicated to me it was done in California.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Also a possibility. Google can provide one-party consent since Google is initiating the call.
- originalsimba 8y ago
  Even if it's a one-party state, that does not make allowances for eavesdropping, which is what Google would be guilty of if they're recording your phone calls. The one-party and two-party rules ONLY applies to active participants in the call. The laws are meant to protect callers and receivers of calls from eavesdropping. There is a presumption especially in one-party states that if you're a participant in a call or conversation you have a god-given right to record it for later review. The FBI can't do it, the NSA can't do it, the CIA can't do it, the phone companies can't do it, you better believe freaking Google can't do it. (slightly on-topic and valuable all the same, there are several excellent free apps to record all your calls on smartphones. This is the single greatest feature of a smartphone.)
- astro_robot 8y ago
  I believe OP is asking about the training model data for Google Duplex (i.e. did Google record calls between two people for training data).
kyrra 8y ago
GOOG-411 likely gave Google a large datasource for voice training. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  I believe this has been explicitly confirmed, but I can't find a source at the moment.
  - nappy-doo 8y ago
    As a Xoogler, that is my understanding. Similarly, all the Google Assistants and (now) Google Homes out there are also being used.
- virtuallynathan 8y ago
  Yep: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/goog411.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c... And also all of the time people talk to Google Home, Assistant, etc. Google Voice voicemails, and perhaps calls? Also, all of the audio and any recorded calls posted to YouTube.
- chaoticmass 8y ago
  Ah, I remember using this service a lot in the pre-smart phone days.
- joshred 8y ago
  Also Google voice, voicemails.
realusername 8y ago
They have all the youtube data plus millions of calls they could buy from call-centers to train if that's not enough, I doubt they need to resort to record calls.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
forgot-my-pw 8y ago
They probably already asked the businesses first, then just did the test at random times.
textmode 8y ago
"To obtain its high precision, we trained Duplex's RNN on a corpus of anonymized phone conversation data." - Yaniv Leviathan
kwerk 8y ago
If you use GCP Enhanced Speech to Text models you’re contributing to a central model: https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced-models https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced-models

37 points by chintanb 8y ago

Is google recording our every call to train their AI models for google duplex ? e.g. "Mm-hmm"

My impression is Google's lawyers are not dumb enough to let Google publicly announce they're illegally recording calls in a two-party consent state: Presumably their demos were recorded with permission or staged. But I was definitely curious how they could operate Duplex without running afoul of existing laws. It's possible Google believes they are not "recording" the call when they send audio to and from their AI. They may be transcribing calls to text, which arguably isn't "call recording", it is just writing down verbatim what was said in the call. They likely have enough voice data from other sources, like Google Assistant on people's phones and Google Home that they can avoid recording calls explicitly.

chintanb 8y ago
I agree that they might be "writing down" the call. Is it legal ? or We accidentally signed up for this when we are using android phones
seba_dos1 8y ago
I don't think that's actually your phone doing the call.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  No, but the issue is, in many places it would be illegal for Google to record a call where they called someone else.
patmcc 8y ago
>>Google publicly announce they're illegally recording calls in a two-party consent state Why wouldn't they just run these tests in a one-party consent jurisdiction? From a quick google only 12 states are two-party. Nothing about the demo indicated to me it was done in California.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Also a possibility. Google can provide one-party consent since Google is initiating the call.
originalsimba 8y ago
Even if it's a one-party state, that does not make allowances for eavesdropping, which is what Google would be guilty of if they're recording your phone calls. The one-party and two-party rules ONLY applies to active participants in the call. The laws are meant to protect callers and receivers of calls from eavesdropping. There is a presumption especially in one-party states that if you're a participant in a call or conversation you have a god-given right to record it for later review. The FBI can't do it, the NSA can't do it, the CIA can't do it, the phone companies can't do it, you better believe freaking Google can't do it. (slightly on-topic and valuable all the same, there are several excellent free apps to record all your calls on smartphones. This is the single greatest feature of a smartphone.)
astro_robot 8y ago
I believe OP is asking about the training model data for Google Duplex (i.e. did Google record calls between two people for training data).

kyrra 8y ago

GOOG-411 likely gave Google a large datasource for voice training. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411

hprotagonist 8y ago
I believe this has been explicitly confirmed, but I can't find a source at the moment.
- nappy-doo 8y ago
  As a Xoogler, that is my understanding. Similarly, all the Google Assistants and (now) Google Homes out there are also being used.
virtuallynathan 8y ago
Yep: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/goog411.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c... And also all of the time people talk to Google Home, Assistant, etc. Google Voice voicemails, and perhaps calls? Also, all of the audio and any recorded calls posted to YouTube.
chaoticmass 8y ago
Ah, I remember using this service a lot in the pre-smart phone days.
joshred 8y ago
Also Google voice, voicemails.

realusername 8y ago

They have all the youtube data plus millions of calls they could buy from call-centers to train if that's not enough, I doubt they need to resort to record calls.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

forgot-my-pw 8y ago

They probably already asked the businesses first, then just did the test at random times.

textmode 8y ago

"To obtain its high precision, we trained Duplex's RNN on a corpus of anonymized phone conversation data." - Yaniv Leviathan

kwerk 8y ago

If you use GCP Enhanced Speech to Text models you’re contributing to a central model: https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced-models https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced-models