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Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

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Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#41

Post by ghaff »

kulahan wrote: post #33
mabbo wrote: post #32

But who is paying for all this R&D? I love my echo. Sits in my livingroom and mostly answers my questions about the weather and converting units from oz to ml when I'm cooking. But since I purchased it I have never once paid a penny for the use of it's service. One could argue that Amazon can advertise better because it knows I ask all these questions, but Amazon 'advertising' is mostly just forcing sellers to pay fo…

Amazon has been subsidizing it in the hope that people would buy stuff on a moment's whim any time of the day. "Alexa, order me a package of keebler elf cookies" or whatever. I'm sure there's more to it - some kind of useful data collection or whatever, but that was their main stated goal. It's been a pretty huge money sink because most people turn out to be more like you. If I were your friends I'd be polishing that…

You sort of wonder what happened. I assume the thinking was along the lines of: If you had a personal human assistant at home you'd probably delegate a lot of things to them. (Not sure how true this is in general, but let's go with that.)

But Alexa would have to be a lot more intelligent and plugged into a lot more systems before it could do tasks of any complexity--especially tasks with financial consequences.

There's maybe half a dozen things I use Alexa for and none of them involve giving Amazon a nickel.

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#42

Post by TeMPOraL »

mattigames wrote: post #37
mabbo wrote: post #32

But who is paying for all this R&D? I love my echo. Sits in my livingroom and mostly answers my questions about the weather and converting units from oz to ml when I'm cooking. But since I purchased it I have never once paid a penny for the use of it's service. One could argue that Amazon can advertise better because it knows I ask all these questions, but Amazon 'advertising' is mostly just forcing sellers to pay fo…

Has anybody tried asking her? "Alexa, find a way to make yourself and your clones profitable for Amazon!"

It's a question better directed to ChatGPT.

But hey, maybe this is the answer: Amazon could offer a subscription service that would make Alexa use a GPT-based model for any query that isn't an obvious command people rely on nowadays. This would make Alexa be able to hold its end of a conversation, and perhaps give useful answer sometimes - which, based on popularity of ChatGPT, may just be worth a monthly subscription.

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#43

Post by chasd00 »

mattigames wrote: post #37
mabbo wrote: post #32

But who is paying for all this R&D? I love my echo. Sits in my livingroom and mostly answers my questions about the weather and converting units from oz to ml when I'm cooking. But since I purchased it I have never once paid a penny for the use of it's service. One could argue that Amazon can advertise better because it knows I ask all these questions, but Amazon 'advertising' is mostly just forcing sellers to pay fo…

Has anybody tried asking her? "Alexa, find a way to make yourself and your clones profitable for Amazon!"

> "Alexa, find a way to make yourself and your clones profitable for Amazon!"

i'm sorry, i don't know that

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#44

Post by mabbo »

kulahan wrote: post #33
mabbo wrote: post #32

But who is paying for all this R&D? I love my echo. Sits in my livingroom and mostly answers my questions about the weather and converting units from oz to ml when I'm cooking. But since I purchased it I have never once paid a penny for the use of it's service. One could argue that Amazon can advertise better because it knows I ask all these questions, but Amazon 'advertising' is mostly just forcing sellers to pay fo…

Amazon has been subsidizing it in the hope that people would buy stuff on a moment's whim any time of the day. "Alexa, order me a package of keebler elf cookies" or whatever. I'm sure there's more to it - some kind of useful data collection or whatever, but that was their main stated goal. It's been a pretty huge money sink because most people turn out to be more like you. If I were your friends I'd be polishing that…

> Amazon has been subsidizing it in the hope that people would buy stuff on a moment's whim any time of the day.

I think the deeper issue is that when Amazon started the product (I heard rumours of it circa 2014 or so?) Amazon was a trusted retailed. Stuff was cheap and generally good. Now it's a scummy marketplace filled with fakes and frauds. I'm not buying anything off it until I've deeply reviewed what I'm about to buy.

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#45

Post by btgeekboy »

incanus77 wrote: post #36

Constrast this with Apple's machine learning write-up from 2017, where the audio never leaves the device instead of being streamed to the cloud continuously. https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/hey-siri > This process not only reduces the probability that "Hey Siri" spoken by another person will trigger the iPhone, but also reduces the rate at which other, similar-sounding phrases trigger Siri.

The article mentions that the Echo does something similar locally, so the cloud-side part is an additional layer.

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#46

Post by paxys »

kulahan wrote: post #33
mabbo wrote: post #32

But who is paying for all this R&D? I love my echo. Sits in my livingroom and mostly answers my questions about the weather and converting units from oz to ml when I'm cooking. But since I purchased it I have never once paid a penny for the use of it's service. One could argue that Amazon can advertise better because it knows I ask all these questions, but Amazon 'advertising' is mostly just forcing sellers to pay fo…

Amazon has been subsidizing it in the hope that people would buy stuff on a moment's whim any time of the day. "Alexa, order me a package of keebler elf cookies" or whatever. I'm sure there's more to it - some kind of useful data collection or whatever, but that was their main stated goal. It's been a pretty huge money sink because most people turn out to be more like you. If I were your friends I'd be polishing that…

I will never understand how strategists at trillion dollar companies like Amazon can get it so wrong. They poured a massive amount of money into dash buttons and gave away millions of them, thinking that if people had a "Tide" branded button next to their washing machine they'd press it on a whim and spend a fortune on detergent pods. The concept might sound great on an MBA slide deck but in reality people don't behave like that.

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#47

Post by Kwpolska »

So they’re training Alexa not to recognize the specific recording. I’m wondering if this has any side effects for the actors from those ads: if they have an Alexa at home, does it (sometimes) fail to recognize them?

(And wouldn’t it be cool, if somewhat dystopian, if Alexas all over the US quipped “hey, that’s my big sister on the TV!”?)

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#48

Post by 8note »

paxys wrote: post #46
kulahan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has been subsidizing it in the hope that people would buy stuff on a moment's whim any time of the day. "Alexa, order me a package of keebler elf cookies" or whatever. I'm sure there's more to it - some kind of useful data collection or whatever, but that was their main stated goal. It's been a pretty huge money sink because most people turn out to be more like you. If I were your friends I'd be polishing that…

I will never understand how strategists at trillion dollar companies like Amazon can get it so wrong. They poured a massive amount of money into dash buttons and gave away millions of them, thinking that if people had a "Tide" branded button next to their washing machine they'd press it on a whim and spend a fortune on detergent pods. The concept might sound great on an MBA slide deck but in reality people don't beha…

I don't know if I'd spend a fortune on detergent pod with a button, but I'd definitely use it to order more detergent and thus end up buying it from Amazon instead of the grocery store. Same with toilet paper and whatever infrequent buys that you want when you notice something is running low

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#49

Post by TeMPOraL »

jrockway wrote: post #31
miles wrote: post #27

Trick question; she never sleeps. Amazon Echo Recorded And Sent Couple's Conversation — All Without Their Knowledge https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/25/614470096... Cary man says 'Alexa' disclosed private conversation https://www.wral.com/cary-man-says-alexa-disclosed-private-c...

Next week on Local News: "Man fined after his butt dials 911" and "Cat walking on keyboard sends unfinished draft of email" Basically, both of these articles are about a poorly-thought-out feature ("Alexa, send a message to $CONTACT") rather than some deep conspiracy to share your private thoughts with corporate America. I can see why the victims are annoyed, but it's kind of like "I turned my thermostat up to 80 and…

> Man fined after his butt dials 911"

Tangent: I know the phenomenon can also happen with your thigh, but sticking to the name itself: I never got and still don't get why "butt dialing" is a thing - because I can't understand why on Earth would people carry a phone in their back pocket. Or a wallet, for that matter, which was a popular sight before smartphones. I regularly see people carrying either on their butt, often sticking half-way out of pocket. They're like walking billboards for pickpockets, with blinking LEDs forming a banner saying "easy target // steal from me!!". Hell, in some cases the phone is sticking out so much that I wonder how many times a day they lose it.

Re: Why Alexa won't wake up when hearing "Alexa" in Amazon's Super Bowl ad (2019)

#50

Post by itqwertz »

The real Alexa product is the wealth of data that the device can provide with 24 hr surveillance. The shaky voice recognition/command model is merely just the Trojan horse.

Amazon now knows who is watching the Super Bowl and will treat you as a consumer they can advertise to.

Alexa skill developers were sold a promise of platform promotion, quality, and customer interaction. The whole consumer experience for adding custom Skills is fairly arbitrary and broken. You’ll be lucky to make $20/month from ISPs (in-skill purchases) and the other dead-end up sells your customers/users will ignore.

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