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Changes we're making to Google Assistant

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Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#271

Post by xnx »

afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

A big portion of the limited discovery of available commands is deliberate so as not to limit what you might ask it to do, which can be used as input for future capabilities.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#272

Post by theblazehen »

pianohacker wrote: post #200
ksjskskskkk wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another thing your pixel 7 cannot do: copy Chinese text. even on apps like google maps. open any place with Chinese chars in the name. toggle the app switcher carousel. try to select the name of the place. only non Chinese text will be copied.

I'm pretty convinced this is because the app switcher can recognize _whether_ a part of an app's UI is a native text field and not just an image, but it's not smart enough to pull the text out. I've seen it make number 0 -> letter O and other such mistakes before, so I'm convinced it's using OCR. Which is probably harder for Chinese. It's crazy to me that it can't just use the accessibility APIs.

It is indeed using OCR. You can even copy text out of a screenshot of text in this way

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#273

Post by droopyEyelids »

mattbee wrote: post #205
RexM wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... when it does anything other than what I ask, it makes me feel like it's wasting my time. Alexa recently started responding with "Good afternoon! " and it irks me more than it probably should. I've looked to see if I can turn it off and can't find the option. I don't need pleasantries from a machine.

As a Brit, when I bark "Alexa, set a timer for 5 minutes" and Alexa prefixes her reply with "Good evening ", TO ME that sounds like a bitter correction-by-example to my abruptness. It's the sarcastic opposite of a pleasantry.

Well put, and it makes sense in the usa context too.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#274

Post by droopyEyelids »

HenryBemis wrote: post #172
RexM wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... when it does anything other than what I ask, it makes me feel like it's wasting my time. Alexa recently started responding with "Good afternoon! " and it irks me more than it probably should. I've looked to see if I can turn it off and can't find the option. I don't need pleasantries from a machine.

Can you instruct it to "stop the greetings - go straight to the response"? Doesn't Alexa (yet) have some LLM behind it that will create a profile just for you?

Alexa is basically a CLI where you use your voice instead of typing

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#275

Post by droopyEyelids »

davely wrote: post #235
afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

The kids used to love our Google mini speaker. There were voice activated games, normal stories, choose your own adventure style stories and a fun little “animal of the day” feature. Every single one of those things have been deprecated and removed for… reasons? All we can do with the speaker now is ask it to play music, get the weather, or set a timer.

I remember being jealous of how much friends could do with the google assistant while i was stuck with siri.

Surprising to hear that Google assistant is now equivalent to Siri!

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#276

Post by iudqnolq »

napoleoncomplex wrote: post #4

A lot of the changes just don't make any sense? Some of the features removed: - Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages - Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. - Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assista…

I think most of those features reply with hard coded UI elements rather than replying with generic text.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#277

Post by afavour »

nf3 wrote: post #247
afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

Who in their right mind would bring this kind of intrusive technology into their home, right into their most intimate space? I seriously don't get it. I mean what's wrong with keeping a pen & paper shopping list on your fridge?

In what world is your kitchen your most intimate space?

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#278

Post by CatWChainsaw »

_dain_ wrote: post #180
Noumenon72 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just faster to say "OK Google, navigate to work" than pulling out a keyboard and opening apps. Even though for some reason I still can't time when Google is going to start listening after all these years, and have to repeat myself a lot. I think it was fine-tuned for American voices at first and got worse when expanded worldwide.

why don't you know the way to work?

When people hand their thinking over to machines to set themselves free, it lets people who control the machines control them.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#279

Post by CatWChainsaw »

Terr_ wrote: post #257
toyg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never going to happen. The Personal Computer revolution was made possible by economies of scale in industrial manufacturing of relatively simple components. Companies made money by selling widgets to as many people as possible. By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity, which is easier to achieve and improve with centralized models. This is always going to be the realm o…

> By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity By what? In the words of Inigo Montoya: "The way you use that word... I do not think it means what you think it means." Sure, we're kinda-brute-forcing things now, but that's no physical law (nor dictionary definition) declaring that digital assistants will be just captive pen-pal lamp-genies of Big Companies inside their Big Comput…

Why would they sell you a solution when they can rent you one forever? Why acquiesce to the logic of physical laws when the laws of economics say "$$$$$!!!"?

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#280

Post by Eezee »

6figurelenins wrote: post #239
afavour wrote: post #30

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was…

> "Hey Google, add to the shopping list"... was very useful... Then one day Google decided to disable that integration. Now the only shopping list you can add to is one Google provides If I recall correctly, "add to my list" originally went to shoppinglist.google.com. They rolled it into Keep[1] ("note to self," tags, sharing). It works well. However... In 2016, I figured "tell me showtimes for $MOVIE in $CITY" shoul…

Did you actually try your cinema prompt recently? I just asked my pixel phone "tell me showtimes for aquaman in Berlin" and it immediately opened an overview of cinemas with showtimes for the Aquaman movie today with options to buy the ticket.

Same for the weather prompt someone else posted above and contrary to their experience it showed me exactly what I expected.

I'm a bit confused if those examples are something that didn't work in the past or if it's something that somehow doesn't work properly in the US right now.

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