Mine has largely been relegated to "decent non-portable Bluetooth speaker". Google's Home doesn't even support Bluetooth, but you can "cast" to it.
Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#32The title is making the assumption that the future of AI isn't glorified radio clock.
Also, what's definition of "future". Academic research paper or project? Or, something deployed and used by millions. I tend towards the later. And by that metric the future is now.
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#33I don't get the fascination with this tech. The computer in Star Trek at least had a personality and intonation in its voice when it responded, even though it sounded like a synthesized voice. The key here is intonation -- the infinitely varying way in which we vary the speed and pitch of our voices in response to another human being. It's very subtle and something Amaazon, Google and Siri have been unable to capture…
The issue of intonation, here, isn't a technical one. I did my third years' internship in a 3 people startup, lost in the middle of the french countryside. And we were working on a software that could generate complete weather bulletin for any european city (>50k inhabitants) or simply deliver a personalized voicemail (with names, dates, past purchases) like any human would do. In fact people were calling back the number we gave, asking for "jeremy", the bot. It was really good and it was less than 1k lines of python code (embedded in django).
So, if Amazon wanted it to be something more than a marketing fluff then could -probably- do something about it.
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#34I have an Amazon Echo in every room of my house, and I use it to control home automation, such as all of my lights, my ecobee thermostat, and my entire home theater (via a logitech harmony). I even use it to switch on and off my humidifier and space heater (and manage the temperature). My wife and I also use it to manage my shopping list (via the OurGroceries skill/app). I can use it to remote start my car and prehea…
Isn't it easier just to do that stuff with your hands?
Not if your hands are busy, or your place is big, or you're already snuggled on the couch and you just want 1 thing to turn on/off.
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#35I use it mainly to set timers while I'm cooking. So a little better than a radio clock but I don't think it's worth it.
Yet you can't name the timers, so it's easy to forget which is which when you set timers staggered throughout cooking at different intervals (even more exacerbated if you dare try to time things to generally come together at the same time).
Ironically this has been +1'd so many time on Amazon's own forums... starting years ago.
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#36I don't get the fascination with this tech. The computer in Star Trek at least had a personality and intonation in its voice when it responded, even though it sounded like a synthesized voice. The key here is intonation -- the infinitely varying way in which we vary the speed and pitch of our voices in response to another human being. It's very subtle and something Amaazon, Google and Siri have been unable to capture…
The issue of intonation, here, isn't a technical one. I did my third years' internship in a 3 people startup, lost in the middle of the french countryside. And we were working on a software that could generate complete weather bulletin for any european city (>50k inhabitants) or simply deliver a personalized voicemail (with names, dates, past purchases) like any human would do. In fact people were calling back the nu…
Being "really good" may not be enough. If it's not perfect, being "really good" could actually make it worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#37I think they really need to work on how to report problems succinctly. A simple error tone would be fine, combined with some recognized follow-up command like “what happened” or “tell me more”; in other words, assume by default that the person probably just mumbled and is about to repeat the real command.
Instead, Alexa likes to spew out multi-sentence explanations when there is a problem, and trying to talk over all of that to get Alexa’s attention again is very irritating. Usually I end up trying to talk at the same time and it may or may not listen. Imagine Alexa saying all of this kind of stuff: “I am sorry, the Thing I Think You Asked Me About But You Did Not Actually Ask Me About is not available right now. I cannot find a solution. Please go to Amazon dot com slash Something Else You Most Definitely Did Not Ask About, and visit the solutions web page.”. While all of that unnecessary verbiage is being barked out, I am usually saying something like: “Alexa...Alexa...ALEXA, turn on the...ALEXA, turn on the...ALEXA STOP!!! Alexa, turn on the lights.”.
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue of intonation, here, isn't a technical one. I did my third years' internship in a 3 people startup, lost in the middle of the french countryside. And we were working on a software that could generate complete weather bulletin for any european city (>50k inhabitants) or simply deliver a personalized voicemail (with names, dates, past purchases) like any human would do. In fact people were calling back the nu…
Being "really good" may not be enough. If it's not perfect, being "really good" could actually make it worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
http://www.creawavestudio.com/interfaces_vocales/
Is it good enough for you? :)
Note: I worked there in 2013, they are smart people. And yes, these are _computer generated_ messages, with human voices.
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#39This guy seems to be most upset about not being able to search Google verbally. Alexa has its skills, but random search is not its finest display of talent (Bing?)
Re: Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise
#40I don't get the fascination with this tech. The computer in Star Trek at least had a personality and intonation in its voice when it responded, even though it sounded like a synthesized voice. The key here is intonation -- the infinitely varying way in which we vary the speed and pitch of our voices in response to another human being. It's very subtle and something Amaazon, Google and Siri have been unable to capture…
I think I like the Google voice best. Still doesn't compare to Microsoft Sam, though...