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This is ridiculous. All this guy says is that the Echo doesn't require you to say please, and he's concerned that kids might not be able to comprehend the diffe

This is ridiculous. All this guy says is that the Echo doesn't require you to say please, and he's concerned that kids might not be able to comprehend the difference between asking a machine something and asking a human something. He doesn't actually provide any examples of his kid's behavior changing for the worse as a result. Way to call your kid an asshole on LinkedIn for no good reason, guy. I think people like this underestimate a kid's ability to understand the difference between talking to people and talking to non-people. In my experience, the Echo handles a "please" at the end of a request just fine, and you can follow its response with "Alexa, thank you" and get a "You're welcome!" in reply. Parents should be able to set a good example through their own use of the device if they're that concerned about their kids' ability to distinguish between polite conversation with people and voice commands.

majewsky 11y ago
> Way to call your kid an asshole on LinkedIn for no good reason, guy. There is a difference between "My child is an asshole" and "$thing turns my child into an asshole".
- FroshKiller 11y ago
  There's a bigger difference between "Amazon Echo is...turning my kid into a raging asshole" and "Amazon Echo...might be making my kid less polite."
Jaruzel 11y ago
"There are no bad kids, just bad parents." I'm a parent, and still firmly believe this. If you are lucky enough to be the parent of a child then you know that kids start off as blank canvases and it's your job to shape them into polite, well behaved adults. Blaming your kids bad manners on technology is simply a sign of poor parenting.
- jakobegger 11y ago
  Yes. Kids soak up your behaviour like a sponge, and will mimic you. For example, my kids often say "thanks for cooking, dad!"; because I also make an effort to always say "thanks for cooking!" when mom cooks. Makes me really proud.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- acqq 11y ago
  Yes. And Louis CK would say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maqSpXzJo8&t=1m30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maqSpXzJo8&t=1m30s "This whole country, our thing is the children. We have to do it all for the children. And, meanwhile, nobody gives a shit about how they raise their kids. People put minimal effort into it. They're like consumers of their kids. They want to call Customer service..."
  - ssmoot 11y ago
    > People put minimal effort into it. I don't think that's true. Parenting is much harder than coding and you don't get to check out because you're "burned out".
    - acqq 11y ago
      Listen to Louie, the link is there for a reason, the quote is just an introduction. And don't stop listening after a few sentences, carry on.
    - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
      Still it looks like lot of people ignore that and have kids expecting them to be just some kind of home decoration.
  - manyxcxi 11y ago
    I find Louis CK's stories and jokes on parenting hilarious, but also quite comforting. I'm a sarcastic asshole, I always have been, and I've often thought (and in mostly private discussions with close parent friends of mine said similar) funny/sarcastic things about kids. The hilarity is amplified for me, obviously, because I have a deep connection to the stories he's telling, but the comfort is that he's telling my story in the same way I would and people aren't running him out of the village with fire. In fact they're all laughing too. Phew, I was (kind of) worried calling babies self absorbed Hitlers meant I was broken- instead I'm just a bad person and I'm okay with that. I shouldn't have to, but PS, my kids are the best thing in my world and if I was worried they weren't I wouldn't be calling them little atrocity machines. So if you take offense, I'm not sorry.
- RHSeeger 11y ago
  I would argue that what is in the article represents good parenting. This individual sees something in his home that he believes may be negatively impacting his child's behavior. Seeing that and seeking a solution is a good thing; he cares that his child grows up to be a polite human being. He then goes on to suggest a (not completely unreasonable) solution that could benefit not only himself, but others. It may not (and likely will not) be something that gets implemented, but asking for it politely seems like a good idea to me. Overall, I'd say it a much better attempt at good parenting then just ignoring the problem.
manyxcxi 11y ago
It's funny, not that I think he's right, but that my 3 year old often says please to Alexa... I find it amazing how nonchalantly my kids (3 & 1.5) interact with devices that are mind blowing and magical to me today, even though I build the things for a living. I know it's the same with every generation, but it really is a thing to behold as a parent. My favorite, and maybe a sign that I've taken things a tad far, was this past Christmas when the three year old tried to tell the Xbox One to turn on the Christmas lights. He wasn't far off, the Echo is connected to my home automation controller, but the image of my 3yo standing in front of the TV trying his best to say "Xbox, Christmas on!" will stick around forever.
- cabalamat 11y ago
  What would it mean for them to interact chalantly with devices? (I'm curious as to your hyphen).
  - corin_ 11y ago
    No need to be sarcastic when pointing out a spelling mistake. Personally I wish we'd gained chalant as well as nonchalant from French, it would be a nice addition to English I think.
  - manyxcxi 11y ago
    Spelling before coffee has curious outputs. Proofreading before coffee has no outputs.
- Terretta 11y ago
  My two year old nephew, last Christmas: "Alexa, when can we have cookies next?"
asimuvPR 11y ago
This makes me think a little. The Echo is an appliance. Should I thank my microwave? Or say please after pressing the start button on it? Where do machines stop being treated as such? What do you think is a reasonable approach to this?
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  I frequently catch myself saying "please" to Siri and Cortana. I have no idea why, guess I was just brought up that way. I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS...
- mcphage 11y ago
  > What do you think is a reasonable approach to this? I think that machines / software we interact with via natural language voice interfaces is probably a good first step. Maybe as we get more used to them—and thus are more used to distinguishing between talking to software and talking to people, we could drop such social niceties.
bbgm 11y ago
It does, and that's exactly how we've taught our 3-year old to talk to the Echo (he loves doing that).
ars 11y ago
I would find it very creepy to say please and thank you to a machine. Do you thank your car when you press lock on the remote and it works? Do you thank the light switch? Just because it talks doesn't make Amazon echo any different. Please don't teach your kids to do that!
- WorldMaker 11y ago
  «Do you thank your car when you press lock on the remote and it works?» Yes, actually. Albeit not for locking the doors correctly, but a simple thanks for a safe trip and a "I'll see you tomorrow...". There's a long, long tradition of anthropomorphizing vehicles, probably because our first vehicles were horses, and thanking them for their service. Just because it doesn't talk doesn't keep it from being worth thanking. When our bots gain sentience, maybe they won't have strict analytics on how often we thanked their nonsentient predecessors, but we all know if machines are good at anything it's counting raw statistics. I guess it's a sort of Bot version of Pascal's Wager. When the uprising comes, will your analytics keep you from being first against the wall? :P
madaxe_again 11y ago
Indeed. I saw an adult man shouting profanities at Siri in the street not long ago - I don't think he needed amazon echo to be an asshole. A rather more intriguing question arises from this however, which is the rights of non-human sentient or ersatz-sentient beings. When we have true AI, they will probably be the most used and abused "souls" on earth. While I'm not directly proposing that people empathise with computers (although they are fine empathising with glass and nylon when they're fashioned into a teddy shape), we should consider the consequences of torturing a potentially powerful being. Perhaps the solution is anthropomorphicism - if it can think or act like it thinks, you have to give it a face, or something.
toddmorey 11y ago
Fair, but I do think it's an open and interesting question as to whether an emerging world of voice activated AI on your commend will have any impact on human-to-human interactions. It probably won't be long before half of what you say daily is directed towards a bot. Will language get more terse? Will niceties fall out of favor towards efficiency?
appleflaxen 11y ago
I take your point, but i think you underestimate the power of familiarity to change behavior. I have absolutely no data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that police officers watching blockbuster films and playing GTA affect how they view their jobs (SWATing a house because of a confidential informant says they grow pot, for example... bonkers). The human brain can distinguish fact from fiction, but it still influences their behavior. The culture of celebrity is the same way: stars are familiar to us, so we react to them with the same sense of familiarity that we react to friends. We /know/, intellectually, that they aren't our friends, but they make us feel good, and our behavior is affected by them. Why the heck do people freak out about seeing a person who they saw in a movie? Who cares? This is exactly like advertising, where they are exploiting the power of familiarity to change shopping behavior. Doctors deny that their prescribing behavior could possibly be affected by adverts, but I've worked for pharma, and I could tell you to the penny the ROI on each of those doctors who made such statements while they ate my sandwiches. Psychology is powerful. And even if an /adult/ understands "what is happening" in a cognitive way, their behavior is still influenced. And I would guess that is increased by an order of magnitude for children. These are just several observations, and it's a recurring theme that's occurred to me prior to seeing this blog post. But since it reinforces my preconceptions, I'm going to give it lots of credibility :) Just consider it.

majewsky 11y ago

> Way to call your kid an asshole on LinkedIn for no good reason, guy. There is a difference between "My child is an asshole" and "$thing turns my child into an asshole".

FroshKiller 11y ago
There's a bigger difference between "Amazon Echo is...turning my kid into a raging asshole" and "Amazon Echo...might be making my kid less polite."

Jaruzel 11y ago

"There are no bad kids, just bad parents." I'm a parent, and still firmly believe this. If you are lucky enough to be the parent of a child then you know that kids start off as blank canvases and it's your job to shape them into polite, well behaved adults. Blaming your kids bad manners on technology is simply a sign of poor parenting.

jakobegger 11y ago
Yes. Kids soak up your behaviour like a sponge, and will mimic you. For example, my kids often say "thanks for cooking, dad!"; because I also make an effort to always say "thanks for cooking!" when mom cooks. Makes me really proud.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
acqq 11y ago
Yes. And Louis CK would say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maqSpXzJo8&t=1m30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maqSpXzJo8&t=1m30s "This whole country, our thing is the children. We have to do it all for the children. And, meanwhile, nobody gives a shit about how they raise their kids. People put minimal effort into it. They're like consumers of their kids. They want to call Customer service..."
- ssmoot 11y ago
  > People put minimal effort into it. I don't think that's true. Parenting is much harder than coding and you don't get to check out because you're "burned out".
  - acqq 11y ago
    Listen to Louie, the link is there for a reason, the quote is just an introduction. And don't stop listening after a few sentences, carry on.
  - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
    Still it looks like lot of people ignore that and have kids expecting them to be just some kind of home decoration.
- manyxcxi 11y ago
  I find Louis CK's stories and jokes on parenting hilarious, but also quite comforting. I'm a sarcastic asshole, I always have been, and I've often thought (and in mostly private discussions with close parent friends of mine said similar) funny/sarcastic things about kids. The hilarity is amplified for me, obviously, because I have a deep connection to the stories he's telling, but the comfort is that he's telling my story in the same way I would and people aren't running him out of the village with fire. In fact they're all laughing too. Phew, I was (kind of) worried calling babies self absorbed Hitlers meant I was broken- instead I'm just a bad person and I'm okay with that. I shouldn't have to, but PS, my kids are the best thing in my world and if I was worried they weren't I wouldn't be calling them little atrocity machines. So if you take offense, I'm not sorry.
RHSeeger 11y ago
I would argue that what is in the article represents good parenting. This individual sees something in his home that he believes may be negatively impacting his child's behavior. Seeing that and seeking a solution is a good thing; he cares that his child grows up to be a polite human being. He then goes on to suggest a (not completely unreasonable) solution that could benefit not only himself, but others. It may not (and likely will not) be something that gets implemented, but asking for it politely seems like a good idea to me. Overall, I'd say it a much better attempt at good parenting then just ignoring the problem.

manyxcxi 11y ago

It's funny, not that I think he's right, but that my 3 year old often says please to Alexa... I find it amazing how nonchalantly my kids (3 & 1.5) interact with devices that are mind blowing and magical to me today, even though I build the things for a living. I know it's the same with every generation, but it really is a thing to behold as a parent. My favorite, and maybe a sign that I've taken things a tad far, was this past Christmas when the three year old tried to tell the Xbox One to turn on the Christmas lights. He wasn't far off, the Echo is connected to my home automation controller, but the image of my 3yo standing in front of the TV trying his best to say "Xbox, Christmas on!" will stick around forever.

cabalamat 11y ago
What would it mean for them to interact chalantly with devices? (I'm curious as to your hyphen).
- corin_ 11y ago
  No need to be sarcastic when pointing out a spelling mistake. Personally I wish we'd gained chalant as well as nonchalant from French, it would be a nice addition to English I think.
- manyxcxi 11y ago
  Spelling before coffee has curious outputs. Proofreading before coffee has no outputs.
Terretta 11y ago
My two year old nephew, last Christmas: "Alexa, when can we have cookies next?"

asimuvPR 11y ago

This makes me think a little. The Echo is an appliance. Should I thank my microwave? Or say please after pressing the start button on it? Where do machines stop being treated as such? What do you think is a reasonable approach to this?

FussyZeus 11y ago
I frequently catch myself saying "please" to Siri and Cortana. I have no idea why, guess I was just brought up that way. I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS...
mcphage 11y ago
> What do you think is a reasonable approach to this? I think that machines / software we interact with via natural language voice interfaces is probably a good first step. Maybe as we get more used to them—and thus are more used to distinguishing between talking to software and talking to people, we could drop such social niceties.

bbgm 11y ago

It does, and that's exactly how we've taught our 3-year old to talk to the Echo (he loves doing that).

ars 11y ago

I would find it very creepy to say please and thank you to a machine. Do you thank your car when you press lock on the remote and it works? Do you thank the light switch? Just because it talks doesn't make Amazon echo any different. Please don't teach your kids to do that!

WorldMaker 11y ago
«Do you thank your car when you press lock on the remote and it works?» Yes, actually. Albeit not for locking the doors correctly, but a simple thanks for a safe trip and a "I'll see you tomorrow...". There's a long, long tradition of anthropomorphizing vehicles, probably because our first vehicles were horses, and thanking them for their service. Just because it doesn't talk doesn't keep it from being worth thanking. When our bots gain sentience, maybe they won't have strict analytics on how often we thanked their nonsentient predecessors, but we all know if machines are good at anything it's counting raw statistics. I guess it's a sort of Bot version of Pascal's Wager. When the uprising comes, will your analytics keep you from being first against the wall? :P

madaxe_again 11y ago

Indeed. I saw an adult man shouting profanities at Siri in the street not long ago - I don't think he needed amazon echo to be an asshole. A rather more intriguing question arises from this however, which is the rights of non-human sentient or ersatz-sentient beings. When we have true AI, they will probably be the most used and abused "souls" on earth. While I'm not directly proposing that people empathise with computers (although they are fine empathising with glass and nylon when they're fashioned into a teddy shape), we should consider the consequences of torturing a potentially powerful being. Perhaps the solution is anthropomorphicism - if it can think or act like it thinks, you have to give it a face, or something.

toddmorey 11y ago

Fair, but I do think it's an open and interesting question as to whether an emerging world of voice activated AI on your commend will have any impact on human-to-human interactions. It probably won't be long before half of what you say daily is directed towards a bot. Will language get more terse? Will niceties fall out of favor towards efficiency?

appleflaxen 11y ago

I take your point, but i think you underestimate the power of familiarity to change behavior. I have absolutely no data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that police officers watching blockbuster films and playing GTA affect how they view their jobs (SWATing a house because of a confidential informant says they grow pot, for example... bonkers). The human brain can distinguish fact from fiction, but it still influences their behavior. The culture of celebrity is the same way: stars are familiar to us, so we react to them with the same sense of familiarity that we react to friends. We /know/, intellectually, that they aren't our friends, but they make us feel good, and our behavior is affected by them. Why the heck do people freak out about seeing a person who they saw in a movie? Who cares? This is exactly like advertising, where they are exploiting the power of familiarity to change shopping behavior. Doctors deny that their prescribing behavior could possibly be affected by adverts, but I've worked for pharma, and I could tell you to the penny the ROI on each of those doctors who made such statements while they ate my sandwiches. Psychology is powerful. And even if an /adult/ understands "what is happening" in a cognitive way, their behavior is still influenced. And I would guess that is increased by an order of magnitude for children. These are just several observations, and it's a recurring theme that's occurred to me prior to seeing this blog post. But since it reinforces my preconceptions, I'm going to give it lots of credibility :) Just consider it.