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Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

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Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#21

Post by spzb »

escapologybb wrote: post #16

I'm pretty much doing that very thing. I'm quadriplegic, so every single action I want to take in the world has to be mediated through a third party. That said party is anything from another person to one of the digital assistants. As another poster mentioned I think, I control pretty much everything in my house including but not limited to unlocking doors, windows, climate control, the lights, posting to Twitter and…

Thanks for the insights into your setup. If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about interacting with traditional desktop and web-based interfaces? Is there anything that a web developer like me should know in order to make life easier for you?

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#22

Post by harperlee »

I think we are closer than we think.

The problem is that all voice control up until now is a closed app with simplified intents.

In my opinion what we need is a programming language whose REPL UX is voice-oriented, that eases the separation between using and extending the system. Prolog or a lisp could be quite near but we would require some changes such as: syntax easily read (:- in prolog is not very good), the ability to manage ums and ahhhs, the ability to “play” or “test” with functions through voice, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#23

Post by imglorp »

setquk wrote: post #2

Siri is still half deaf and tries to send me to the chip shop when I ask it to send a message and they have a ridiculous amount of budget behind that so probably not. At the moment our technology is like Zorg’s desk in Fifth Element. Stuffed full of toys but ultimately will let you down too often to be relied upon.

Google no better. You still can't "send my wife a Slack message" or "read me the last SMS received" or even "send a hangouts message to Bob".

Some of the integrations are willfully missing for obvious business reasons.

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#24

Post by arethuza »

setquk wrote: post #2

Siri is still half deaf and tries to send me to the chip shop when I ask it to send a message and they have a ridiculous amount of budget behind that so probably not. At the moment our technology is like Zorg’s desk in Fifth Element. Stuffed full of toys but ultimately will let you down too often to be relied upon.

"send me to the chip shop"

Do you have an accent by any chance - pretty much all voice recognition technology (Android, Apple, cars...) appears to be utterly flummoxed by my fairly mild Scottish accent.

[Edit: to be fair, my accent is probably fairly mild by Scottish standards, not compared to RP].

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#25

Post by krick »

kaybe wrote: post #10
new_guy wrote: post #8

Sure you can. Services like Alexa are just glorified paperweights and aren't reflective of real world capabilities. If you want to build your own Jarvis, don't listen to anyone else just get stuck in. You'll be surprised just how far you can get with it.

You could also build on top of one of the open source versions, eg Mycroft. https://mycroft.ai/

That's interesting. Basically the only reason I don't use Alexa or something like this is that I don't want 3rd party listening to me 24/7, so an open source alternative would be of great use. But I don't understand: it says it's open-source, yet the first thing I have to do is to create an account on their platform. So, what's that "open source" thing I ought to download and install, is it just a client? Can I use the thing completely self-hosted?

Also, how does it compare in terms of usability to Alexa/Siri? In fact, I'm not even sure I've seen a good open-source TTS at this point, nothing comparable to proprietary stuff. Is this mycroft thing better?

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#27

Post by overcode »

krageon wrote: post #17
overcode wrote: post #4

If we could, we would have. But we haven't, so we can't.

Without context, this statement means nothing new should ever be done. It's a terrible axiom. Even within the context of this question, if we used this reasoning for the next 500 years we would surely never solve it.

Oh sure, but that's why you have the context. My point is that the time gap between a tool like this becoming technically possible and someone executing it successfully will be incredibly small. So the chances of the current moment in time being in that gap is tiny.

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#28

Post by guzik »

Ha, this is how we've been advertising our wearable, personal assistant (aidlab.com) during the launch on Facebook (such a copyright infringement!). We've been facing the hardware limitation to add the NLP directly on the MCU, as we wanted to omit the 3rd parties. Secondly, adding ‚reasonable’ voice commands like setting appointments, wiki search or alarms is nothing we could have done alone, so we’ve discontinued this idea for now.

If we define J.A.R.V.I.S. as a pseudo-intelligent assistant, with a basic understanding of voice commands and biosignal tracker then it’s certainly doable, as there are some commercial implementations. Otherwise (like real-time voice chat, or even accurate suggestions based on every-day habits), it is still too soon IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#29

Post by hondadriver »

arethuza wrote: post #24
setquk wrote: post #2

Siri is still half deaf and tries to send me to the chip shop when I ask it to send a message and they have a ridiculous amount of budget behind that so probably not. At the moment our technology is like Zorg’s desk in Fifth Element. Stuffed full of toys but ultimately will let you down too often to be relied upon.

"send me to the chip shop" Do you have an accent by any chance - pretty much all voice recognition technology (Android, Apple, cars...) appears to be utterly flummoxed by my fairly mild Scottish accent. [Edit: to be fair, my accent is probably fairly mild by Scottish standards, not compared to RP].

Must be it, a golden oldy about Scottish speech recognition (2010): https://youtu.be/NMS2VnDveP8

Re: Ask HN: Can we build Ironman's Jarvis with 2019 tech?

#30

Post by ewang1 »

krick wrote: post #25
kaybe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also build on top of one of the open source versions, eg Mycroft. https://mycroft.ai/

That's interesting. Basically the only reason I don't use Alexa or something like this is that I don't want 3rd party listening to me 24/7, so an open source alternative would be of great use. But I don't understand: it says it's open-source, yet the first thing I have to do is to create an account on their platform. So, what's that "open source" thing I ought to download and install, is it just a client? Can I use t…

I've recently started playing with a Home Assistant set up and came across Snips (https://snips.ai/). A bunch of Raspberry Pis with microphones running Snips is what I'm looking to try next. IMO, the offline/on-device processing is a key differentiator.
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