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Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

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Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#111

Post by gadders »

wtmt wrote: post #97

* Setting a timer or an alarm * Asking for the weather * Play some (desired) music Are there other things that these devices ("smart speakers") are really useful for? A voice activated browser or computer, on the other hand, is extremely useful for those who don't know to type or to use a browser (or a computer). It could be people who are not privileged enough to learn or people who find these very difficult to lear…

The only other thing we really use it for is calling from room to room, as a glorified intercom.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#112

Post by ajford »

jonplackett wrote: post #51

The problem is that the trigger for 3rd party skills sucks. Saying "Alexa, ask [Whatever skill name] to do something" is really unnatural and ruins the whole user experience. They need sort out the grammar to make it actually feel conversational.

Yep. It's a pain to have to say "Alexa, ask Chevrolet to start my car". Why can't I just say "Alexa, start my car". Clearly it's the only car related skill...

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#113

Post by darksaints »

portmanteaufu wrote: post #103
abakker wrote: post #87

The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. There are no native apps because everything that it can do is just an IO to something else. If they actually get conversational, this will change, but until then, it’s just a command line with no man page.

> The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. In a way, I think it's even worse than that. I've used Alexa since the Echo was a relatively new product. Back then, I experimented with new phrases and commands often, but was frequently greeted with wrong answers or "Sorry, I don't know how t…

It would be pretty cool if it could update you on things you've asked for in the past that were not possible then but are now possible.

"Hey, 3 months ago you asked for the forecast according to the ECMWF weather model, and I couldn't answer you. But now I can, so go ahead and try!".

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#114

Post by sandworm101 »

portmanteaufu wrote: post #103
abakker wrote: post #87

The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. There are no native apps because everything that it can do is just an IO to something else. If they actually get conversational, this will change, but until then, it’s just a command line with no man page.

> The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. In a way, I think it's even worse than that. I've used Alexa since the Echo was a relatively new product. Back then, I experimented with new phrases and commands often, but was frequently greeted with wrong answers or "Sorry, I don't know how t…

>> "Hey, we know you tried to ask your Echo to report its volume level before and it didn't work

This makes me shudder. Such a functionality would mean that they stored your failed request in some sort of database, a database that they later used to send you a personalized marketing email. A machine cataloging our voice for later inspection is a very dark future. Alexa should delete and scrub any iota of voice that it doesn't instantly understand.

"Oh, remember last week when I though you were asking me to buy you a pot plant? I now realize you were asking me to buy you some pot from Canada. It will be arriving in two days."

"I didn't understand it at the time, but I now realize that you were yelling at your husband Alex, not Alexa. Your social credit score has been adjusted to reflect this negative interaction."

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#115

Post by drsim »

Alexa needs a PageRank and an 'I'm feeling lucky' that is successful the majority of the time.

I would like it to work as a room of human experts works with a moderator.

Alexa, how long will it take me to cycle to Netto?

Alexa sends this parsed query out to all apps it thinks can answer.

They respond with a confidence level and answer / follow up question.

Alexa decides which app to choose (the 'PageRank') based on a number of factors like has the query been seen before and how did each app perform for it, the app's answer success rate, has the user been given a response from this app before etc. etc.

The user should not have to install apps. Alexa should know all of the apps in the room and what they're good/bad at and select one to respond.

Surely discovery is the wrong way to think about this problem and Alexa needs to be elevated from a good speech parser.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#116

Post by com2kid »

lbacaj wrote: post #32

Anecdotally a developer friend of mine strongly suspects, most people, are like him and not actually using these home speakers very much. I’ve been working on a an Audio App that reads any articles to you for iOS/Android and planned to bring it to the Echo and he seems to suggest my efforts are totally wasted. Although their market reach seems to be massive, likely related to their cheap price, not surprised by this…

I am surprised there isn't a demo available on the site, at least there wasn't an obvious one I saw. I imagine your conversion rate would improve from that landing page if customers could hear a sample!

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#117

Post by cheez »

drsim wrote: post #115

Alexa needs a PageRank and an 'I'm feeling lucky' that is successful the majority of the time. I would like it to work as a room of human experts works with a moderator. Alexa, how long will it take me to cycle to Netto? Alexa sends this parsed query out to all apps it thinks can answer. They respond with a confidence level and answer / follow up question. Alexa decides which app to choose (the 'PageRank') based on a…

Oh I like this twist on things. The difficulty is how do you prevent your data/query going to a place you wouldn't want it to go to?

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#118

Post by nothis »

wtmt wrote: post #97

* Setting a timer or an alarm * Asking for the weather * Play some (desired) music Are there other things that these devices ("smart speakers") are really useful for? A voice activated browser or computer, on the other hand, is extremely useful for those who don't know to type or to use a browser (or a computer). It could be people who are not privileged enough to learn or people who find these very difficult to lear…

I'm very skeptical about this as well but an argument I saw on here that I found kinda convincing was a comparison to the usual job of a "secretary". Most interactions are verbal and there's a wide variety of tasks that can be solved that way. The real problem is trust in an automated system handling those correctly, which is solvable.

Think, for example, sorting your email inbox by "importance", not based on some flags or fixed heuristics but an actual, intelligent scan of the contents. Think of having reasonable phone conversations that result in scheduling appointments and answering concrete questions.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#119

Post by melling »

tomc1985 wrote: post #108
melling wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the Alexa is more like birth of the personal computer. Computers weren't very good in the mid 1970's. Now that companies realize there's a product here, there will be an arm's race. Look for big improvements in next decade. Lots of people and billions of dollars are about to go into making these products better.

It isn't that revolutionary. When they can do all that processing locally, without cloud assistance, then maybe...

You mean the opposite of networking computers?

Like taking the Internet away?

At any rate, being connected to the cloud will allow for faster iteration. Once it becomes a solved problem, then you can more easily remove the network.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#120

Post by argd678 »

ravenstine wrote: post #96

A lot of people don't even realize the Alexa mobile app even exists , despite the fact they must have installed it at one point in order to set up their Echo device. Hence, discoverability is pretty low. I don't know why Amazon still hasn't attempted to address this issue. If all they want is for people to buy shit from Amazon through it, why bother with all these custom "skills"? Generally, however, I think we've ov…

I think it could be incredibly useful if it wasn’t like talking to someone who is hard of hearing, comically misinterprets similarly sounding words and can’t understand basic logic in sentences (what’s the weather _and_ traffic, then find my phone and turn off the lights).

I’d like to ask it the meaning of Latin phrases or other words, but it just hears the words used 99% of the time despite being clearly pronounced differently.

Ask it what bus and at which time I should leave to go somewhere. It doesn’t have any transportation info and can’t do basic logic.

Duolingo would be a great integration for conversations while learning another language, but it can bearly understand English.

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