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The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

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Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#41

Post by timthelion »

justinjlynn wrote: post #28
nindalf wrote: post #21

I bought an Alexa yesterday and the second thing I asked it to do was “play the Desi playlist from my Spotify”. I tried 5 different variants of this, and also in different accents but it was unable to understand it. It’s cool that they’re doing work to improve understanding in Desi contexts, which makes it that much stranger that it couldn’t understand “Desi”.

Idea... "Alexa, how do I (get you to do/ask for)..." "Sorry, I'll have to think about that for a few minutes" In that time, a support tech reviews the question, perhaps with some machine leaning assistance, and then gets back to you with the answer. "(first name), about your request, you can (insert instruction or apology)." Amazon already has mechanical turk... no reason why Alexa shouldn't take advantage.

This. I really don't understand why companies are so allergic to human intervention.

Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#42

Post by amingilani »

sreejithr wrote: post #33
amingilani wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the emphasis on Urdu as our national language means almost everyone everywhere is comfortable speaking Urdu!

Does everyone there in Pakistan accept and use Urdu as the de-factor language? Here in India, that's unfortunately not the case.

Yes, actually. Everyone in the country accepts Urdu as a national language and atleast speaks it as a second language.

Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#43

Post by naturalgradient »

briandear wrote: post #36
naturalgradient wrote: post #22

Now this is a very negative opinion in a general anti-consumerist sense but: Why does one buy items like an Alexa? I get that it performs some features, it slightly increases convenience but it does not enable anything new or different. Something I do not understand about hackernews: There are a lot of people on here who, on average, care about the environment. By the same token, there are many users here who have an…

Alexa/Siri et al aren’t about “consumerism” — that’s the naïve interpretation— that’s just a surface look. These devices represent the future of how man interacts with machine. Right now, they are mostly toys used for “consumer” purposes, but look at the internet itself — during the early days one could have asked “why should we be building networks for the military? Dismissing Alexa/etc. as mere vehicles for consump…

So any consumption is justified because it supports the overall advancement of technology and we need not think about consumption because things will be consumed either way?

I am sorry I do not buy this - where is the justification for the assumption that this is the only way we can advance tech? As an AI researcher, I strongly strongly disagree that I have to enable more consumption for tech to progress.

Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#45

Post by saiya-jin »

briandear wrote: post #36
naturalgradient wrote: post #22

Now this is a very negative opinion in a general anti-consumerist sense but: Why does one buy items like an Alexa? I get that it performs some features, it slightly increases convenience but it does not enable anything new or different. Something I do not understand about hackernews: There are a lot of people on here who, on average, care about the environment. By the same token, there are many users here who have an…

Alexa/Siri et al aren’t about “consumerism” — that’s the naïve interpretation— that’s just a surface look. These devices represent the future of how man interacts with machine. Right now, they are mostly toys used for “consumer” purposes, but look at the internet itself — during the early days one could have asked “why should we be building networks for the military? Dismissing Alexa/etc. as mere vehicles for consump…

That's your opinion. To me, they are exactly that - gadgets for early adopters, nothing more. You have no clue where future will go, so that part of reasoning doesn't make much sense. Also future will arrive with or without your financial contribution, just by pure scale of mankind.

For example I base my shopping decisions on true long-term added value to my life - and such thingies fail on that scale. With this logic, I bought recently my first paraglide because I know what profound impact it will have on my life. And in same vein, I still use 2-year old cheap big huawei honor phone that is not great at anything, but good enough for everything I ever need from it. Explaining this to some iphone x owner is a good lesson on futility.

Maybe in 20 years these thingies will be different, then I'll adjust my opinion about them. No reason to do it sooner.

As for consumerism OP mentioned, most people are incredibly selfish, me probably included. It's just very hard to live with oneself while admitting it, so people go to great lengths to paint themselves in some positive light, see argumentation above. Living frugal is doable but hard, a selfless act for potential future. Respect to those from high above

Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#46

Post by dominotw »

naturalgradient wrote: post #22

Now this is a very negative opinion in a general anti-consumerist sense but: Why does one buy items like an Alexa? I get that it performs some features, it slightly increases convenience but it does not enable anything new or different. Something I do not understand about hackernews: There are a lot of people on here who, on average, care about the environment. By the same token, there are many users here who have an…

I saw a billboard this morning on the highway for alexa which said

"Alexa buy me an Kenmore washing machine"

wtf.

Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#47

Post by justinjlynn »

freeone3000 wrote: post #40
justinjlynn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idea... "Alexa, how do I (get you to do/ask for)..." "Sorry, I'll have to think about that for a few minutes" In that time, a support tech reviews the question, perhaps with some machine leaning assistance, and then gets back to you with the answer. "(first name), about your request, you can (insert instruction or apology)." Amazon already has mechanical turk... no reason why Alexa shouldn't take advantage.

Because mechanical turk MUST be supervised. The reward is disassociated from performance - it's the agent problem, writ large, since workers are effectively anonymous and paid piecework. In any paper using mechanical turk, half or more is trying to get the humans to do what they're told correctly. (They behave more like mischevious djinn than computers if allowed to act freely.) Just dropping in mechanical turk witho…

> support tech

Amazon employees with more to lose than a few cents per hour.

Re: The backstory of Alexa’s Indian makeover

#48

Post by justinjlynn »

timthelion wrote: post #41
justinjlynn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idea... "Alexa, how do I (get you to do/ask for)..." "Sorry, I'll have to think about that for a few minutes" In that time, a support tech reviews the question, perhaps with some machine leaning assistance, and then gets back to you with the answer. "(first name), about your request, you can (insert instruction or apology)." Amazon already has mechanical turk... no reason why Alexa shouldn't take advantage.

This. I really don't understand why companies are so allergic to human intervention.

I would imagine it's because, unlike with computerised services, the per-interaction costs aren't entirely consistent and have non-negligible cost. It's also much much harder to hire and retain people than it is to buy a million new blackbox computers.
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