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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)

#51

Post by paxys »

8note wrote: post #48
paxys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Except you don't know what exactly you are buying, what the price is, whether the purchase went through, when it will reach you... What Amazon quickly found out is that even if the button is within reach people will still prefer to take an extra 10 seconds to pull out the phone from their pocket and tap the Amazon app instead.

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

#52

Post by paxys »

itqwertz wrote: post #50

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 c…

This keeps getting repeated all over the internet but is simply not true. There may be a day when Amazon turns Alexa into advertising spyware, but that definitely wasn't its original intention and nothing of the sort is happening today.

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

#53

Post by ohyoutravel »

8note wrote: post #48
paxys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did you use the buttons for these things?

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

#54

Post by bboygravity »

paxys wrote: post #52
itqwertz wrote: post #50

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 c…

This keeps getting repeated all over the internet but is simply not true. There may be a day when Amazon turns Alexa into advertising spyware, but that definitely wasn't its original intention and nothing of the sort is happening today.

Why sell advertising of you can lease out a backdoor to the NSA and other (international) agencies?

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

#55

Post by Rychard »

paxys wrote: post #51
8note wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Except you don't know what exactly you are buying, what the price is, whether the purchase went through, when it will reach you... What Amazon quickly found out is that even if the button is within reach people will still prefer to take an extra 10 seconds to pull out the phone from their pocket and tap the Amazon app instead.

When doing the initial activation of the Dash button, you had to choose the item that it would purchase from a list of items belonging to the corresponding brand on the button itself. The available choices were fairly diverse, differing in style/quantity/price/etc.

When you pressed the button, you know what you were buying and how much it cost, because you're the one who set it up.

As for how to determine whether the purchase went through or not, an LED would light/flash on the button to indicate success/failure, and you'd receive an email with more detailed information such as the item being purchased, its cost, and the address where it will be shipped. If the button press was a mistake, you could simply cancel the order.

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

#56

Post by ghaff »

paxys wrote: post #51
8note wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Except you don't know what exactly you are buying, what the price is, whether the purchase went through, when it will reach you... What Amazon quickly found out is that even if the button is within reach people will still prefer to take an extra 10 seconds to pull out the phone from their pocket and tap the Amazon app instead.

And, especially if you don't live in a dense city without a car, things like Tide pods are exactly the sort of thing that is very likely cheaper at the local Walmart than on Amazon. Pretty much all the stuff Amazon was pushing these buttons for is exactly the stuff I usually stock up on every six months at Walmart.

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

#57

Post by incanus77 »

btgeekboy wrote: post #45
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.

No, it's different in a major way.

Apple:

  - Only ever uploads anything to the cloud after a *successful* wake word is detected on-device (and, critically, lets you know with a voice confirmation).
Amazon:

  - "On most Echo devices" checks on-device against known commercials (the point of this article).
Then:

  - "In the cloud: Every audio request to Alexa that starts with a wake word is checked..." — successful or not. Meaning, all audio requests are streamed, then problematic wake words are filtered, then the phrase is acted on.
From the article:

> Ideally, a device will identify media audio using locally stored fingerprints, so it does not wake up at all. If it does wake up, and we match the media event in the cloud, the device will quickly and quietly turn back off.

i.e. if a media match is not detected locally, the audio (all audio) is next sent to the cloud for screening & possible action.

Everything here on the Amazon side is about detected false-positives, on-device or not, and nothing is about protecting the user's privacy.

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

#58

Post by philwelch »

RHSeeger wrote: post #40
bitwize wrote: post #7

This reminds me of a PSA about texting and driving that aired on the radio in some parts of the USA (or maybe Canada?) a few years back. At the end, the announcer says: "Hey Siri, go into airplane mode."

That sounds like a recipe for causing _more_ accidents as a lot of people are forced to take their eyes off the road to fix their phone; all at the same time.

And losing their GPS to boot

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

#59

Post by candiddevmike »

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…

I'm signed up for Alexa Developer stuff and I've seen a huge uptick in emails about how to monetize your skill since last September. Amazon really wants folks to start charging money.

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

#60

Post by candiddevmike »

paxys wrote: post #52
itqwertz wrote: post #50

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 c…

This keeps getting repeated all over the internet but is simply not true. There may be a day when Amazon turns Alexa into advertising spyware, but that definitely wasn't its original intention and nothing of the sort is happening today.

How would you know when they do this? Buried inside a "We've made some updates to our Terms of Service" email?
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