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Alexa+

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Re: Alexa+

#101

Post by rchaud »

dlcarrier wrote: post #13
doctoboggan wrote: post #6

I ordered the first echo the day it was announced, and was excited about the possibility for years. But that "possibility" never turned into reality for me and I ended up only using it to start timers and play music. I've since abandoned the product line and do not have faith that Amazon will develop this into something actually useful, rather than something that is used to sell me products and surveil on me.

That's all moat users ever do with an Echo. Amazon thought that users would trade the benefits of comparison shopping for convenience and use the Echo to order products chosen by Amazon, but they did not. Outside of providing the time and whether, and turning lights on and off, Amazon severely limited the ability for third parties to add features, and even reduced it it further well after launch.

Back in 2019, every marketing conference was abuzz with hype for the latest in tech innovation: "voice as the primary interface for search". Hopefully those attendees diversified their plans with something timeless and battle-tested like "pivot to video".

Re: Alexa+

#102

Post by pbronez »

firejake308 wrote: post #77
pr337h4m wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out https://exa.ai/ - iirc they use a link-prediction transformer https://websets.exa.ai/cm7m8a1ip006rdzzzgxsalirs

Looks great, but wow, the pricing is insane for the typical consumer

Agree, very cool but not $200/mo cool.

Re: Alexa+

#104

Post by stronglikedan »

doctoboggan wrote: post #6

I ordered the first echo the day it was announced, and was excited about the possibility for years. But that "possibility" never turned into reality for me and I ended up only using it to start timers and play music. I've since abandoned the product line and do not have faith that Amazon will develop this into something actually useful, rather than something that is used to sell me products and surveil on me.

Just because it's not useful to you doesn't mean it's not useful. It has the best shopping list of any assistant (non-Apple-walled-garden), it's the only one that can text me my reminders, and the skills are killer - sprinklers, remote car start, the possibilities with skills are limitless. I've never felt compelled to buy a product it has offered me, but it did offer me a really good deal once on an item I had been looking at, which was useful.

Re: Alexa+

#105

Post by wiremine »

I'm not optimistic, but my recent experiences with Gemini's mobile app gives me pause on my pessimism.

My wife and I are planning a family vacation, and we had some questions about various destinations. I opened Gemini, and we had a helpful 10-minute conversation.

If Alexa+ can provide a similar experience, I can see us having more of those voice-based sessions.

Re: Alexa+

#107

Post by kstrauser »

crooked-v wrote: post #96
dlcarrier wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all moat users ever do with an Echo. Amazon thought that users would trade the benefits of comparison shopping for convenience and use the Echo to order products chosen by Amazon, but they did not. Outside of providing the time and whether, and turning lights on and off, Amazon severely limited the ability for third parties to add features, and even reduced it it further well after launch.

I could see users absolutely doing that if it was with, say, the extensively tailored product selection of Costco, where you can order a Kirkland brand item in any category and generally be satisfied with the results. But Amazon shot themselves in the foot by flooding every category with brands like XGYSZY and KWYBLPOP. No one is ever going to trust ordering off Amazon without actually seeing what they're buying. It'…

Nailed it. If I could say "Alexa, order AAA batteries" and I'd get something generally recognizable as a legitimate brand at a reasonable price, I'd do it. If I were today to say "Alexa, buy milk", I'd fully expect to get a gallon of "Doctor Methy's Cow Juice" in a ziploc bag. There's no way I'd trust it to get me what I actually wanted.

Re: Alexa+

#109

Post by bhhaskin »

wiremine wrote: post #105

I'm not optimistic, but my recent experiences with Gemini's mobile app gives me pause on my pessimism. My wife and I are planning a family vacation, and we had some questions about various destinations. I opened Gemini, and we had a helpful 10-minute conversation. If Alexa+ can provide a similar experience, I can see us having more of those voice-based sessions.

The big issue with LLM is how can you trust the information it gives you? It could be flat out making all or some of it up.

Re: Alexa+

#110

Post by Aurornis »

nashashmi wrote: post #76

I remember when law officers wanted the Alexa recording at the home of a murder. Amazon did not give it up. I always thought that data was meaningless if it takes a person hours to go through it. Now we have AI. Which means the data is not meaningless. And the always on feature actually means something. And that means all your data at home can be at someone's fingertips ... because say they are looking for ways to ma…

I think your memory is mistaken. Amazon will give up recordings when legally obligated to do so, because that’s the law. They can’t choose to ignore the law.

However, Alexa and similar devices don’t actually record everything. Amazon doesn’t get a recording of everything the devices hear. They have to be triggered by the wake word (or possible a false positive).

Here’s a case where the Alexa command was used as part of the case, though it didn’t have recordings of the actual crime: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11899217/Murderer-j...

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