Prediction: Technologies Like Google Duplex Will Soon Be Stealing Your Money

Earlier this month, Google showed off a new technology they’ve been working on called “Duplex”. In case you haven’t heard, it’s basically Siri on steroids. Google Duplex is able to call real people and interact with them on the phone in normal conversation to achieve simple tasks, like booking a table at a restaurant. The voice sounds very real, it even goes as far as adding “ums” and “aahs” to make it sound like a real human.

Obviously, when a giant like Google releases new tech like this, there’s a whole bunch of different opinions. Some people think it’s pretty cool, some feel that there are some ethical issues, others find it plain creepy. I come from an IT security background, so I can’t help think of the security implications this could have.

Right now, Google Duplex is not available for anyone to play with except the Google researchers who are working on it, but it exists. There are computers who can converse with a human on the phone — and the human is unaware that they are talking to a robot.

Here’s the problem: humans inherently trust phone calls more than emails. We are used to people trying to scam us via email, and if you use a popular email service like Gmail, there are really great filters in place to ensure that you never even see those emails…