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Alexa+

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Re: Alexa+

#181

Post by 65 »

harmmonica wrote: post #28

If an LLM-based voice assistant/hardware combination works as well as ChatGPT-for-voice works today, I don't think it's a stretch to say that nearly everyone in the coming years will use/have one (the software of course will be portable to whatever device you're using--house, phone, car, etc. But the hardware portion I do believe will be critical because most of the time using it will be at home in a room and in that…

You know, people said the same thing the first time voice assistants came out. They said the same thing when VR came out. Even when 3D printers came out for God's sake.

"Everyone will have one!"

It's a mistake to think every person is the same level of enthused with new technology as you are.

Re: Alexa+

#182

Post by theultdev »

65 wrote: post #178
taeric wrote: post #123

I find it interesting that the big companies are so sure that LLMs are somehow going to make a larger market for smart speakers than they currently have. To the contrary, I expect they are going to damage the market they have for people that just want easy kitchen timers and radio like functionality. This feels like the VR plays some of the big companies have made. I'm willing to bet that the market for people that w…

I never understood how people find setting a timer on their phone so excruciatingly difficult that they need to buy a $100+ device they can speak to to do it for them. Or perhaps it's another case of shiny object syndrome.

would be nicer if there was a cheaper / simpler alternative (offline voice recognition, just timers and clock, possibly weather)

but it's nice to use your voice so you don't contaminate your phone. (preparing chicken and such)

the kitchen is pretty much the only use-case for voice assistants imo.

Re: Alexa+

#183

Post by dlcarrier »

brookst wrote: post #157
dlcarrier wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't found an LLM that gives correct responses often enough to be consistently useful with typed requests, let alone spoken ones.

That’s wild. What kinds of things do you ask about? I fine all of the modern LLMs to be very very good, with some errors but no worse than would turn up in a google search.

That's a pretty low bar, at least over the last several years. I feel like any time I ask Google something uncommon, it presumes a meant something else, and is hard set on answering that question, no matter how many quotes or minus symbols I add to the search.

Re: Alexa+

#184

Post by Larrikin »

65 wrote: post #178
taeric wrote: post #123

I find it interesting that the big companies are so sure that LLMs are somehow going to make a larger market for smart speakers than they currently have. To the contrary, I expect they are going to damage the market they have for people that just want easy kitchen timers and radio like functionality. This feels like the VR plays some of the big companies have made. I'm willing to bet that the market for people that w…

I never understood how people find setting a timer on their phone so excruciatingly difficult that they need to buy a $100+ device they can speak to to do it for them. Or perhaps it's another case of shiny object syndrome.

If you already have one the utility is obvious in the kitchen. You don't want to touch your dirty hands to your phone and you definitely don't want to touch your food after touching your even dirtier phone.

I don't think that is useful enough to allow Bezos to listen to everything in my home, but will absolutely enable this feature in a product like Home Assistant.

Re: Alexa+

#185

Post by Marsymars »

pflenker wrote: post #97
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.

Part of why people only use it for timers is because of its limited capability to understand. „Do I need an umbrella today?“ results in Alexa telling me what the weather will be like without mentioning chance of rain. Asking a trivia question leads to it reading out a response that is wrong 50% of the time. If I ask Alexa to remind me at 8, it asks me whether am or pm though I expressed it unambiguously in German. If…

I've found it easiest to just leave a lightweight, compact umbrella as a permanent fixture in my everyday-carry bag!

Re: Alexa+

#186

Post by esafak »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #167
taeric wrote: post #123

I find it interesting that the big companies are so sure that LLMs are somehow going to make a larger market for smart speakers than they currently have. To the contrary, I expect they are going to damage the market they have for people that just want easy kitchen timers and radio like functionality. This feels like the VR plays some of the big companies have made. I'm willing to bet that the market for people that w…

Google has already done this. Destroyed its existing assistant product -- removed key functionality, de-staffed the team, moved it all under Gemini. I'm in a few Polestar car user groups, and people are pissed that their Android based head units can no longer do basic integration via assistant stuff that the car was initially sold to them able to do. In some cases they are blaming Polestar, in some cases connecting t…

I bet the people involved in the decision to bork it up don't even use the product. Management by OKRs. The numbers look good, ship it!

Re: Alexa+

#189

Post by ceejayoz »

Marsymars wrote: post #180
ceejayoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"On sale" usually means "the price is the same it's been for the last six months, but we're showing a big discount on a price that was never charged", in my experience. Siri has suddenly started telling me things like "did you know you can say 'Siri, stop' to end the timer?" when I use it, which is frustrating extra friction on something that worked just fine. Worse, it does it regularly and doesn't seem to be tuneab…

> "On sale" usually means "the price is the same it's been for the last six months, but we're showing a big discount on a price that was never charged", in my experience. In many/most jurisdicitions, this isn't permitted by regulators (e.g. it would typically qualify as false advertisement), but enforcement is mixed. You can help regulators by reporting it and including supporting documentation when you see it.

Add a few dozen items to an Amazon wishlist a few weeks before Prime day. Take a screenshot. Come back on Prime day and see how many are "Prime Day Deals!" with roughly the same price they used to be.

Higher, quite frequently.

Re: Alexa+

#190

Post by Marsymars »

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #130
sixothree wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A curated list of "household essentials" would go an extremely long way to making this useful. But as far as I know, they never really did anything of the sort.

Even with that you have like 20 different configurations of the same toilet paper with various prices per foot and shipping speeds. I think that was what “amazons choice” was targeted at solving but I could be wrong.

"Amazon's choice" is algorithmic. It's will often be two different products if you look at two different regional Amazon sites, even if both products are available on both sites at comparable pricing.
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