Nick Statt, The Verge:

Following widespread outcry over the ethical dilemmas raised by Google’s new Duplex system, which lets artificial intelligence mimic a human voice to make appointments, Google has clarified in a statement that the experimental system will have “disclosure built-in.”

And:

“We understand and value the discussion around Google Duplex — as we’ve said from the beginning, transparency in the technology is important,” a Google spokesperson told The Verge in a statement this evening. “We are designing this feature with disclosure built-in, and we’ll make sure the system is appropriately identified. What we showed at I/O was an early technology demo, and we look forward to incorporating feedback as we develop this into a product.”

This is good. But as I’ve said before, much better if Google had weighed in with awareness of the ethical issues at the same time as they rolled out their demo.

A thought: Does Google have an ethics office? Or someone whose job it is to spot issues like this? If not, that might be worth exploring.