Gmail Wants To Reply To Your Emails For You With Artificial Intelligence

While we’re committed to a future serving as underlings to artificially intelligent lifeforms, we might as well enjoy some of the time-saving benefits, right? Like answering emails on the go — who wants to do that when there other more important things to do, like finally beat level 478 of Sugarsweet Smashtastic Kerplosion? Google wants to take on that task, with artificial intelligence that can read and reply to emails on your smartphone.

Google has been developing technology called Smart Reply that uses “deep learning” — a form of AI — to its Inbox by Gmail app that will analyze an email message and then suggest a few, brief responses, reports Wired.comAl.

That way you can quickly reply from your phone instead of taking the time to try to bang out a message on a smartphone keyboard while you’re juggling your morning coffee, your tablet and shoving elbows on the bus, for example.

“The network will tailor both the tone and content of the responses to the email you’re reading,” Google product management director Alex Gawley tells Wired. In this scenario, you’ll get three responses, and then you select the one that fits best.

Smart Reply isn’t just content to churn out replies automatically, nope: it learns by analyzing email conversations from all over Gmail. A deep learning service feeds information into a neural network that is designed to act like the web of neurons in a human brain, and the network then takes that information and “learns” a task.

Google knows Smart Reply won’t always get things right, but then again, that’s why there are three possible responses provided. You can also edit the replies in your own words, teaching A.I. a lesson in the process.

The company is going to unveil the system to the general public on Wednesday, so mark your calendars for that date with the note, “Impending worldwide domination by computers continues apace.”

Soon, Gmail’s AI Could Reply to Your Email for You [Wired.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist