4 ms·

This could be mostly solved by allowing people to rename their digital assistants.

by jcoffland 10y ago

colordrops 10y ago
Good point. Are households with someone named Alexa completely unable to use this product?
- skuhn 10y ago
  No, there are two other name options available: Amazon and Echo. Echo is my preferred one, since it's two syllables.
  - beagle3 10y ago
    Just don't watch any episode of "dollhouse" where the lead character played by Eliza Dushku is called Echo
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- malloreon 10y ago
  You can change the wake word to 'amazon' or 'echo'
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
azinman2 10y ago
I'd rather change the entire persona. Alexa, siri, google, etc are all bland and boring. Not surprising given the creators. I want a sassy NeNe Leakes!
- jszymborski 10y ago
  I mean, Cortana is a little fleshed out... Although but I'm not sure she a sexy blue woman appeals to all
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    I like to envision her as Zoey from Left 4 Dead.
- generj 10y ago
  If you make your own Alexa device you can do so. It's simple enough with a Raspberry Pi and a microphone. Unfortunately you lose the far-field mics is you do this. https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy
emiliobumachar 10y ago
You're right, but I think name-pinning has some important benefits: It allows the AI to hyper-specialize to recognizing that particular name, increasing reliability, and use generic voice recognition, with the associated costs and privacy issues, only after activated. Not 100% sure, but I think that activation recognition is even local. They only send your voice to mothership after activation.
- generj 10y ago
  Yes, activation is local. You can see this in the documentation for making your own Alexa device. [0] To my knowledge all the cloud-based systems use something like this for both privacy and technical reasons. Sensory includes a chart showing the CPU requirements for wake word activation and accuracy. [1] The main reason custom names aren't allowed is accuracy and training time. Even with a well-trained model like Sensory's using 90 MIPS the wakeword isn't recognized 10.2% of the time and has false acceptance. Using a set wakeword could also allow for a FPGA or custom chip to have the wakeword model hard-coded for a much lower power hit for mobile applications. One of the other wakeword solutions, Kitt-AI Snowboy [2] allows for personal hotwords, but it takes some effort to make a personal training set and this isn't nearly as robust as what Amazon can throw at it. [0] https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app [1] https://github.com/Sensory/alexa-rpi https://github.com/Sensory/alexa-rpi [2] https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy

This could be mostly solved by allowing people to rename their digital assistants.

colordrops 10y ago

Good point. Are households with someone named Alexa completely unable to use this product?

skuhn 10y ago
No, there are two other name options available: Amazon and Echo. Echo is my preferred one, since it's two syllables.
- beagle3 10y ago
  Just don't watch any episode of "dollhouse" where the lead character played by Eliza Dushku is called Echo
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
malloreon 10y ago
You can change the wake word to 'amazon' or 'echo'
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

azinman2 10y ago

I'd rather change the entire persona. Alexa, siri, google, etc are all bland and boring. Not surprising given the creators. I want a sassy NeNe Leakes!

jszymborski 10y ago
I mean, Cortana is a little fleshed out... Although but I'm not sure she a sexy blue woman appeals to all
- bitJericho 10y ago
  I like to envision her as Zoey from Left 4 Dead.
generj 10y ago
If you make your own Alexa device you can do so. It's simple enough with a Raspberry Pi and a microphone. Unfortunately you lose the far-field mics is you do this. https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy

emiliobumachar 10y ago

You're right, but I think name-pinning has some important benefits: It allows the AI to hyper-specialize to recognizing that particular name, increasing reliability, and use generic voice recognition, with the associated costs and privacy issues, only after activated. Not 100% sure, but I think that activation recognition is even local. They only send your voice to mothership after activation.

generj 10y ago
Yes, activation is local. You can see this in the documentation for making your own Alexa device. [0] To my knowledge all the cloud-based systems use something like this for both privacy and technical reasons. Sensory includes a chart showing the CPU requirements for wake word activation and accuracy. [1] The main reason custom names aren't allowed is accuracy and training time. Even with a well-trained model like Sensory's using 90 MIPS the wakeword isn't recognized 10.2% of the time and has false acceptance. Using a set wakeword could also allow for a FPGA or custom chip to have the wakeword model hard-coded for a much lower power hit for mobile applications. One of the other wakeword solutions, Kitt-AI Snowboy [2] allows for personal hotwords, but it takes some effort to make a personal training set and this isn't nearly as robust as what Amazon can throw at it. [0] https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app [1] https://github.com/Sensory/alexa-rpi https://github.com/Sensory/alexa-rpi [2] https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy https://github.com/Kitt-AI/snowboy