7 ms·

Alexa isn’t the future of AI–it’s a glorified radio clock, and stupid otherwise

138 points by smalera 10y ago

njharman 10y ago
The title is making the assumption that the future of AI isn't glorified radio clock. Also, what's definition of "future". Academic research paper or project? Or, something deployed and used by millions. I tend towards the later. And by that metric the future is now.
Taylor_OD 10y ago
I unplugged my Alexa after being woken up at night with Alexa yelling about something or another too many times. It seemed like the perfect noise maker that could also casually perform a limited number of other tasks and parlor tricks when needed but the tech just isnt there. It has a lot of issues hearing me when I want it to and yet somehow picks up when I'm talking about a friend Alex from a room away. It's not quite as disappointing as the Kindle Fire I bought but at least my girlfriend can use that to watch movies on.
- Animats 10y ago
  I unplugged my Alexa after being woken up at night with Alexa yelling about something or another too many times. "Why isn't your desk in front of the telescreen?"
- slowmovintarget 10y ago
  3:15am: "I can't connect to the internet!" Arrrggghhh! The problem of course was that the Echo rebooted faster than the wireless router after a power failure.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I don't own an Alexa but I can't stop myself from asking this, after reading this and the article. Is there really no setting on this thing to make it shut down from 11PM to 6AM?
caycep 10y ago
what about it being the trojan horse of AI, to get Amazon's foot in the door for its eventual successor?
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  Like Windows Mobile in the smartphone business?
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  You need to put the payload inside the vehicle before you deliver it. Your chances of successfully installing it later fall asymptotically towards zero.
  - burrows 10y ago
    Remote update.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      ...which is why your phone keeps getting slower, as it's loaded with code written for better models as a way of marketing their superior capacity. Same reason you can't fit a jet engine to a biplane and expect good performance.
Animats 10y ago
What did you expect? Its primary purpose is ordering stuff.
IgorPartola 10y ago
Alexa is a voice interface, and a pretty good one at that. I use it primarily for home automation and it works pretty well for that. There is not much intelligence behind it in that regard, but it's very good at recognizing commands, which is what is needed.
- EnFinlay 10y ago
  The voice recognition is good, but the interface is completely independent of Alexa. The interface is spawned from a group of people brainstorming all the different ways someone can ask to turn on the lights, and then figuring out the ways to deal with all the different inputs. I'm not sure how common the knowledge is around making an Alexa skill, but I made one as a side project so I might have some insight. You define a bunch of variables, and describe what form they are likely to come in (number, data, US city, list of strings). It's not strictly bound to any enumeration you use. Then you list out a bunch of phrases that people are expected to say to activate a function. You can pepper the variables into these phrases. Then you link these phrases to functions, which receive the variables as parameters. What you do from there is up to you. I would say it's a clever way of gradually reducing the complexity, but it does result in putting the "conversation" complexity on the developer. There is no "state" or compound queries unless the developer thought of the conversation going that way.
  - IgorPartola 10y ago
    Things like Alexa skills existed before Alexa. The magic Amazon added was the hardware + API that was a step ahead of what was there before. Siri by comparison is not as good precisely because the microphones are not as good.
  - sahn44 10y ago
    Totally right. I've been building a skill and you quickly learn how un-magical Alexa is. Most of the effort is engineering in fine detail to achieve some degree of natural interaction for your users. For example, adding in state and awareness of what the user said before to influence the skill's behavior and response. It feels like I'm inventing all that from scratch rather than the alexa platform helping achieve that. If you want to see how well I've done, enable "NextSubway" :) https://www.amazon.com/Matt-Sahn-NextSubway/dp/B01N9MO4DT/ https://www.amazon.com/Matt-Sahn-NextSubway/dp/B01N9MO4DT/
yaur 10y ago
I don't have the Amazon stuff, but do mostly control hue with Siri and > in order to use the Hue bulbs with Alexa, you must relinquish all use of manual light switches. Isn't fully true. We have smart dimmers that can be placed in better spots since they are battery powered.
josephjrobison 10y ago
I've owned the Alexa since their first release. 80% of my request are the weather for the day. Ask for the weather forecast the next few days and she falls short. Other than that she's good for playing music on Spotify or Pandora, and occasionally I'll ask for the time. I haven't tried Google Home, but the fact that it will read the first search result snippet as an answer seems light years ahead of Alexa. Side-note: I just made the connection that Amazon bought Alexa.com the web analytics company a long time, and has named Echo's personal assistant Alexa. No coincidence, right? Although they never really mention it.
CWuestefeld 10y ago
This article far exaggerates the devices problems, at least as I've experienced it. If someone shouts my name—Alex—across the apartment, it will activate Alexa That's trivially fixable. You can rename her to "Echo", "Amazon", or "Computer". sometimes Alexa will also be activated by arbitrary syllables in ordinary conversation. ... As I read this paragraph aloud to myself, her blue ring has already lit up several times I've had this happen at random (i.e., when I didn't say her name accidentally) exactly once that I've noticed. not only is Alexa incapable of looking up even basic facts This is an exaggeration. By all accounts Google's device does better. But it's simply false that it can't look up "even basic facts". It's quite limited, but far from absolutely useless. In my mind, Alexa's greatest flaw is in the design for its skill interface. You can't interact with her conversationally, because you always need to preface every command with its skill name, e.g., "Alexa, ask Spaceman what's the news today?" [1]. You must always remember these special names, and used them in this stilted fashion for all interactions. And making this worse is that Amazon insists that the interactions within each skill must be completely discoverable, so that they don't want to publish more than a couple of samples from each, encouraging you to experiment and discover yourself, a process I find tiresome and one guaranteed to leave at least some of the capabilities unknown. [1] Shameless plug - this is a skill I wrote to give you news about scheduled rocket launches, near earth object passes, and lunar phase - https://sites.google.com/view/spacemanforalexa/ https://sites.google.com/view/spacemanforalexa/
- zippergz 10y ago
  > That's trivially fixable. You can rename her to "Echo", "Amazon", or "Computer". In my experience, this just changes the times that it accidentally triggers. It doesn't actually reduce how often it happens. Our triggers for random crap all the time, both when we say stuff that sounds like "Alexa" and for completely indecipherable reasons. We actually have two of them in our house, and only one regularly goes of at the wrong time. I thought it might be defective, so I swapped them, but then the other one started doing it. It's location-dependent in our house, so it must have to do with the acoustics or something. Regardless, it's annoying, and the less technical family members are far less tolerant of this kind of stuff than I am. All that said, I still agree that the article goes overboard in exaggeration. Overall I like my Echos, and I think they work pretty well most of the time. There's a lot of room for improvement, but it is a new product.
stuart78 10y ago
While mine has never 'accidentally' ordered anything or yelled about internet disconnect, I do agree with the conclusion that it ends up being a very specific device. For me, that is a connected speaker with good sound that I can gently manage from across the room. Good enough for me. On another note, my 2 year old son has always had a complicated relationship with 'her'. At one point, she red-ringed and would issue inscrutable messages after long periods of spinning white. This really sent him into a tailspin and it has taken several months for him to trust her again.
- daveguy 10y ago
  This is fascinating. It hadn't dawned on me that very small children growing up with these in their homes will have a very human response to them. A relationship regardless of the actual intelligence of the device.
  - stuart78 10y ago
    Yeah, it is definitely a weird time we're moving into.
jbae29 10y ago
I use it mainly to set timers while I'm cooking. So a little better than a radio clock but I don't think it's worth it.
- azinman2 10y ago
  Yet you can't name the timers, so it's easy to forget which is which when you set timers staggered throughout cooking at different intervals (even more exacerbated if you dare try to time things to generally come together at the same time). Ironically this has been +1'd so many time on Amazon's own forums... starting years ago.
sly010 10y ago
My favorite one: Me: Alexa, set up an alarm for 2 minutes Alexa: Two minutes. [Two minutes later] Alexa: Beep beep beep Me: Alexa, thank you! Alexa: You are welcome... Beep beep beep... Edit: formatting
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- igravious 10y ago
  I spent a minute staring at this comment in puzzlement wondering what party to the interaction this "Edit" person is and what hard drive they were formatting while telling the world about it.
TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
One thing that I noticed that Alexa is helping me out in: Speaking up! I have come to realize I mumble and talk low and cold heartless Alexa will remind me to speak up. That being said, I never thought of my Echo as anything other than a 1st step towards something greater.
t0mbstone 10y ago
I have an Amazon Echo in every room of my house, and I use it to control home automation, such as all of my lights, my ecobee thermostat, and my entire home theater (via a logitech harmony). I even use it to switch on and off my humidifier and space heater (and manage the temperature). My wife and I also use it to manage my shopping list (via the OurGroceries skill/app). I can use it to remote start my car and preheat or cool it down in the morning. I can even control my adjustable tempurpedic bed base, and have an IFTTT trigger which makes my bed vibrate whenever my amazon echo alarm goes off in the morning. The possibilities are endless, and it's only going to get better.
- JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
  Isn't it easier just to do that stuff with your hands?
  - azinman2 10y ago
    Not if your hands are busy, or your place is big, or you're already snuggled on the couch and you just want 1 thing to turn on/off.
  - zippergz 10y ago
    I have my home automation stuff hooked up to Alexa also, and no, it's not always easier to do it with my hands. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I am often baffled by this "I'll just use the light switch" response to home automation. It's not that you can't "just use the light switch," but there are situations where it makes life measurably better to not have to. First world problems, for sure, but they exist. For example, if I'm sitting comfortably in my recliner and I decide I want to watch a movie, it's pretty great to be able to tap a few buttons on my phone to dim the lights without getting up. It's even better to now be able to say "alexa, turn on movie lights" to do it without digging out and unlocking my phone. Or if I'm making dinner, feeling hot, and my hands are covered in tomato juice, it's awfully nice to be able to adjust the air conditioner by voice. These aren't life changing things, but they are pretty nice luxuries that have increased my family's quality of life.
iamleppert 10y ago
I don't get the fascination with this tech. The computer in Star Trek at least had a personality and intonation in its voice when it responded, even though it sounded like a synthesized voice. The key here is intonation -- the infinitely varying way in which we vary the speed and pitch of our voices in response to another human being. It's very subtle and something Amaazon, Google and Siri have been unable to capture. And it makes interacting with these interfaces awkward and annoying to me. Either it needs to be perfect or it gets relegated to a "that's neat" category and promptly shut off. When I talk to one of these things, it's downright painful. It's like speaking to a someone who's (at least interacting in english, I'm sure its true of other languages) primary language isn't english and they are just saying a series of words without any meaning behind them. You tolerate this (although its still annoying) because you're interacting with a human being on the other end, not some white or beige box. The issue behind this of course is these devices will likely never be able to master intonation, because doing so would be a feat that would require clear understanding of subtle context, far greater than what current NLP technology can do, and may even require a general intelligence. It might be possible, I'm not up to date on the current state of the art but certainly wouldn't be computationally feasible in a consumer product any time soon. Until then, I'll never buy or use one of these stupid voice interfaces. I can get the same task done on my phone or whatever UI without the annoyance.
- stuart78 10y ago
  I understand what you mean, but for me, she has developed something of a personality. It is kind of a bumbling but well intentioned friend. Similar to my Roomba which is not the best at what he does, but keeps on trying (i.e. bumping futilely into the same walls).
- vorpalhex 10y ago
  Google Home is starting to get there, especially in the games where the total set of commands and responses is much lower. It definitely has room to grow, but it'll get there given time. VR was terrible in the 90s, now it's breathtaking.
- rlpb 10y ago
  I think the value of these systems is when you have your hands full, or when getting out your phone or other UI is not convenient. "Alexa, turn on the lights". "Alexa, let the cat out". "Alexa, did I lock the door?" As soon as there are enough of these, it'll take off because it'll be useful. None of these things need real intelligence. Sure, intonation won't be great. But the convenience will override the imperfection.
snarf21 10y ago
I don't get this rant. Alexa is still bleeding edge. It does some things really well. It does some things really poorly. There are lots of things it can't do. So the main complaint is that Alexa could be better, your point..? To me, right now it excels as an interface when you are busy doing something else. Ours is used most in the kitchen and living room. Timers, streaming music/audio and basic facts all work great. Home automation is improving and will get there as systems learn to play nice. That seems like a lot for $50, but maybe that's just me... The killer app hasn't been created yet (and possibly not even envisioned). I can't wait until they are connected and I can issue a command to move streaming from one device to another one in another room ("Alexa, pause for Jim", "Alexa, continue for Jim"). I think the biggest downside of voice UI right now is a lack of authentication. Someone outside the window could yell "Alexa, open the door".
- 010a 10y ago
  > I can't wait until they are connected and I can issue a command to move streaming from one device to another one in another room Google Home can do this to a degree today. You are capable of saying things like "Play X on my TV." if your TV is wired up with a ChromeCast. In general, Google Home is very far ahead of Alexa. I agree with the opinion that Alexa is a glorified radio, but I don't believe that opinion extends to all devices in that class. I think its just because Alexa is overrated and not very powerful.
  - notyourwork 10y ago
    You give a really vanilla use case and than suggest Google Home is superior. Can you give me a use case where it actually demonstrates it is far ahead. The Chromecast example isn't supporting your claim in my opinion.
    - Eridrus 10y ago
      Entertainment is the biggest use care for these devices IMO; Music and TV. I haven't used an Echo in a while, but it had nothing for TV and wasn't that great at music at the time. Does it have good support for both now?
herbturbo 10y ago
I only got the Dot a couple of weeks ago and for me it's worth the $50 just for playing music. Anyone who thinks it is a "glorified radio clock" might want to just take some time to think about exactly what it's doing. I'm kind of amazed by it.
SomewhatLikely 10y ago
Mine has largely been relegated to "decent non-portable Bluetooth speaker". Google's Home doesn't even support Bluetooth, but you can "cast" to it.
makecheck 10y ago
I think they really need to work on how to report problems succinctly. A simple error tone would be fine, combined with some recognized follow-up command like “what happened” or “tell me more”; in other words, assume by default that the person probably just mumbled and is about to repeat the real command. Instead, Alexa likes to spew out multi-sentence explanations when there is a problem, and trying to talk over all of that to get Alexa’s attention again is very irritating. Usually I end up trying to talk at the same time and it may or may not listen. Imagine Alexa saying all of this kind of stuff: “I am sorry, the Thing I Think You Asked Me About But You Did Not Actually Ask Me About is not available right now. I cannot find a solution. Please go to Amazon dot com slash Something Else You Most Definitely Did Not Ask About, and visit the solutions web page.”. While all of that unnecessary verbiage is being barked out, I am usually saying something like: “Alexa...Alexa...ALEXA, turn on the...ALEXA, turn on the...ALEXA STOP!!! Alexa, turn on the lights.”.
mafro 10y ago
This guy seems to be most upset about not being able to search Google verbally. Alexa has its skills, but random search is not its finest display of talent (Bing?)
ignorantguy 10y ago
I stopped setting alarms on alexa, since it does not stop when I ask it to stop. I had to unplug it once which was really annoying.
scosman 10y ago
This article misses the point. Alexa is interesting because it's a new user interface (voice + always listening), not because it's "an AI". Imo, it's the biggest UI jump since the touchscreen phone. The tech that enables the UI will continue to improve, but it doesn't need to be a general purpose conversational AI to be successful.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Well, a good point that there is no AI except for speech recognition, but, overlooks the utility of hands-free operation. In scenarios like cooking, in jacuzzi/bath/shower, or just when you are some distance from the device, it is useful to control listening to audio books, music, NPR radio, etc., my family owns two Echoes and get good use from them.
blubb-fish 10y ago
52 comments and nobody mentions the NSA. Are you people aware that this is essentially a glorified bug?
- slantaclaus 10y ago
  I was at a multifamily technology conference in San Diego last year and during a panel with some 'experts', brought up the concern of devices like Amazon Echo recording people's conversations. The lady who responded misunderstood me and chimed in within something like: "you know, I haven't even thought of that. There are many opportunities for revenue with this technology". But that was an evil uber-landlord, not sure where Amazon stands on this. If they want to increase adoption for this technology, they better come up with a solid privacy policy and stand behind it.
  - blubb-fish 10y ago
    A policy won't help against the NSA. And technologically the language processing "necessarily" takes place in the cloud. For that everything you say needs to be sent through the web. Amazon will store everything they can for the purpose of later using this as a training data set.
    - mercer 10y ago
      > And technologically the language processing "necessarily" takes place in the cloud. Is that actually true? And if so, how far are we from being able to do this on the device itself?
- Pyxl101 10y ago
  Have you considered that maybe other people have thought about this and reached a different conclusion? I think calling it an NSA bug is pretty silly if you have a smartphone or laptop. How are those not bugs? All of these devices have microphones. The Echo is less likely to be used as a bug than any other device because it's simple and single-purpose. When you are not using it, it is idle and will not use network throughput. That's trivially easy to monitor with my router. I can see how many gigabytes of data my TV downloads. If an Echo started consuming network throughput to upload audio when I was not using it, then that would be extremely suspicious and easy to notice. This ease of detection makes it a terrible covert surveillance device. By comparison, I have little visibility into what my phone is streaming over its cellular connection, and devices like laptops, PCs, and Xboxes are so complicated that I cannot expect their network usage to be idle. It is unsurprising for these devices to download/upload potentially gigabytes of data while not in use, because some software has decided to patch in the background. These devices have local storage and could buffer audio and upload it during times of legitimate network activity. There is a lot of network activity in which covert surveillance could hide. This is not so with the Echo. Additionally, your phone and laptop are far more juicy targets for the NSA or any attacker. These devices have your data! An attacker can break in and steal your documents or passwords or other data. And then they can also activate the microphone and listen to you! The Echo doesn't have any data on it, so it's not a juicy target. It's also stationary in one room and has far less ability to conduct effective surveillance on someone than the cell phone or laptop that they carry with them everywhere. Someone isn't going to take their Echo with them to the mosque or an important business meeting or whatever. The Echo is far less complicated than smartphones and laptops (less stuff running on it), and so is less likely to have software defects that can be exploited remotely by attackers.
WheelsAtLarge 10y ago
This article is a case of over expectations. Echo IS a great clock radio and that's fine with me. The great part about it is the ability to access my music. If I want to hear x all I have to do is ask for it. 5 years ago I would never have had expected to be able to that for less than $50.00. Everything else that comes with it is just icing on the cake. We are still years away, if ever, from the Star Trek computer. And that's fine. Keep your expectations in check and you can see that it's excellent technology --with a great future.

138 points by smalera 10y ago

The title is making the assumption that the future of AI isn't glorified radio clock. Also, what's definition of "future". Academic research paper or project? Or, something deployed and used by millions. I tend towards the later. And by that metric the future is now.

Taylor_OD 10y ago

I unplugged my Alexa after being woken up at night with Alexa yelling about something or another too many times. It seemed like the perfect noise maker that could also casually perform a limited number of other tasks and parlor tricks when needed but the tech just isnt there. It has a lot of issues hearing me when I want it to and yet somehow picks up when I'm talking about a friend Alex from a room away. It's not quite as disappointing as the Kindle Fire I bought but at least my girlfriend can use that to watch movies on.

Animats 10y ago
I unplugged my Alexa after being woken up at night with Alexa yelling about something or another too many times. "Why isn't your desk in front of the telescreen?"
slowmovintarget 10y ago
3:15am: "I can't connect to the internet!" Arrrggghhh! The problem of course was that the Echo rebooted faster than the wireless router after a power failure.
tptacek 10y ago
I don't own an Alexa but I can't stop myself from asking this, after reading this and the article. Is there really no setting on this thing to make it shut down from 11PM to 6AM?

caycep 10y ago

what about it being the trojan horse of AI, to get Amazon's foot in the door for its eventual successor?

spiderfarmer 10y ago
Like Windows Mobile in the smartphone business?
anigbrowl 10y ago
You need to put the payload inside the vehicle before you deliver it. Your chances of successfully installing it later fall asymptotically towards zero.
- burrows 10y ago
  Remote update.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    ...which is why your phone keeps getting slower, as it's loaded with code written for better models as a way of marketing their superior capacity. Same reason you can't fit a jet engine to a biplane and expect good performance.

Animats 10y ago

What did you expect? Its primary purpose is ordering stuff.

IgorPartola 10y ago

Alexa is a voice interface, and a pretty good one at that. I use it primarily for home automation and it works pretty well for that. There is not much intelligence behind it in that regard, but it's very good at recognizing commands, which is what is needed.

EnFinlay 10y ago
The voice recognition is good, but the interface is completely independent of Alexa. The interface is spawned from a group of people brainstorming all the different ways someone can ask to turn on the lights, and then figuring out the ways to deal with all the different inputs. I'm not sure how common the knowledge is around making an Alexa skill, but I made one as a side project so I might have some insight. You define a bunch of variables, and describe what form they are likely to come in (number, data, US city, list of strings). It's not strictly bound to any enumeration you use. Then you list out a bunch of phrases that people are expected to say to activate a function. You can pepper the variables into these phrases. Then you link these phrases to functions, which receive the variables as parameters. What you do from there is up to you. I would say it's a clever way of gradually reducing the complexity, but it does result in putting the "conversation" complexity on the developer. There is no "state" or compound queries unless the developer thought of the conversation going that way.
- IgorPartola 10y ago
  Things like Alexa skills existed before Alexa. The magic Amazon added was the hardware + API that was a step ahead of what was there before. Siri by comparison is not as good precisely because the microphones are not as good.
- sahn44 10y ago
  Totally right. I've been building a skill and you quickly learn how un-magical Alexa is. Most of the effort is engineering in fine detail to achieve some degree of natural interaction for your users. For example, adding in state and awareness of what the user said before to influence the skill's behavior and response. It feels like I'm inventing all that from scratch rather than the alexa platform helping achieve that. If you want to see how well I've done, enable "NextSubway" :) https://www.amazon.com/Matt-Sahn-NextSubway/dp/B01N9MO4DT/ https://www.amazon.com/Matt-Sahn-NextSubway/dp/B01N9MO4DT/

yaur 10y ago

I don't have the Amazon stuff, but do mostly control hue with Siri and > in order to use the Hue bulbs with Alexa, you must relinquish all use of manual light switches. Isn't fully true. We have smart dimmers that can be placed in better spots since they are battery powered.

josephjrobison 10y ago

I've owned the Alexa since their first release. 80% of my request are the weather for the day. Ask for the weather forecast the next few days and she falls short. Other than that she's good for playing music on Spotify or Pandora, and occasionally I'll ask for the time. I haven't tried Google Home, but the fact that it will read the first search result snippet as an answer seems light years ahead of Alexa. Side-note: I just made the connection that Amazon bought Alexa.com the web analytics company a long time, and has named Echo's personal assistant Alexa. No coincidence, right? Although they never really mention it.

CWuestefeld 10y ago

This article far exaggerates the devices problems, at least as I've experienced it. If someone shouts my name—Alex—across the apartment, it will activate Alexa That's trivially fixable. You can rename her to "Echo", "Amazon", or "Computer". sometimes Alexa will also be activated by arbitrary syllables in ordinary conversation. ... As I read this paragraph aloud to myself, her blue ring has already lit up several times I've had this happen at random (i.e., when I didn't say her name accidentally) exactly once that I've noticed. not only is Alexa incapable of looking up even basic facts This is an exaggeration. By all accounts Google's device does better. But it's simply false that it can't look up "even basic facts". It's quite limited, but far from absolutely useless. In my mind, Alexa's greatest flaw is in the design for its skill interface. You can't interact with her conversationally, because you always need to preface every command with its skill name, e.g., "Alexa, ask Spaceman what's the news today?" [1]. You must always remember these special names, and used them in this stilted fashion for all interactions. And making this worse is that Amazon insists that the interactions within each skill must be completely discoverable, so that they don't want to publish more than a couple of samples from each, encouraging you to experiment and discover yourself, a process I find tiresome and one guaranteed to leave at least some of the capabilities unknown. [1] Shameless plug - this is a skill I wrote to give you news about scheduled rocket launches, near earth object passes, and lunar phase - https://sites.google.com/view/spacemanforalexa/ https://sites.google.com/view/spacemanforalexa/

zippergz 10y ago
> That's trivially fixable. You can rename her to "Echo", "Amazon", or "Computer". In my experience, this just changes the times that it accidentally triggers. It doesn't actually reduce how often it happens. Our triggers for random crap all the time, both when we say stuff that sounds like "Alexa" and for completely indecipherable reasons. We actually have two of them in our house, and only one regularly goes of at the wrong time. I thought it might be defective, so I swapped them, but then the other one started doing it. It's location-dependent in our house, so it must have to do with the acoustics or something. Regardless, it's annoying, and the less technical family members are far less tolerant of this kind of stuff than I am. All that said, I still agree that the article goes overboard in exaggeration. Overall I like my Echos, and I think they work pretty well most of the time. There's a lot of room for improvement, but it is a new product.

stuart78 10y ago

While mine has never 'accidentally' ordered anything or yelled about internet disconnect, I do agree with the conclusion that it ends up being a very specific device. For me, that is a connected speaker with good sound that I can gently manage from across the room. Good enough for me. On another note, my 2 year old son has always had a complicated relationship with 'her'. At one point, she red-ringed and would issue inscrutable messages after long periods of spinning white. This really sent him into a tailspin and it has taken several months for him to trust her again.

daveguy 10y ago
This is fascinating. It hadn't dawned on me that very small children growing up with these in their homes will have a very human response to them. A relationship regardless of the actual intelligence of the device.
- stuart78 10y ago
  Yeah, it is definitely a weird time we're moving into.

jbae29 10y ago

I use it mainly to set timers while I'm cooking. So a little better than a radio clock but I don't think it's worth it.

azinman2 10y ago
Yet you can't name the timers, so it's easy to forget which is which when you set timers staggered throughout cooking at different intervals (even more exacerbated if you dare try to time things to generally come together at the same time). Ironically this has been +1'd so many time on Amazon's own forums... starting years ago.

sly010 10y ago

My favorite one: Me: Alexa, set up an alarm for 2 minutes Alexa: Two minutes. [Two minutes later] Alexa: Beep beep beep Me: Alexa, thank you! Alexa: You are welcome... Beep beep beep... Edit: formatting

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
igravious 10y ago
I spent a minute staring at this comment in puzzlement wondering what party to the interaction this "Edit" person is and what hard drive they were formatting while telling the world about it.

TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago

One thing that I noticed that Alexa is helping me out in: Speaking up! I have come to realize I mumble and talk low and cold heartless Alexa will remind me to speak up. That being said, I never thought of my Echo as anything other than a 1st step towards something greater.

t0mbstone 10y ago

I have an Amazon Echo in every room of my house, and I use it to control home automation, such as all of my lights, my ecobee thermostat, and my entire home theater (via a logitech harmony). I even use it to switch on and off my humidifier and space heater (and manage the temperature). My wife and I also use it to manage my shopping list (via the OurGroceries skill/app). I can use it to remote start my car and preheat or cool it down in the morning. I can even control my adjustable tempurpedic bed base, and have an IFTTT trigger which makes my bed vibrate whenever my amazon echo alarm goes off in the morning. The possibilities are endless, and it's only going to get better.

JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
Isn't it easier just to do that stuff with your hands?
- azinman2 10y ago
  Not if your hands are busy, or your place is big, or you're already snuggled on the couch and you just want 1 thing to turn on/off.
- zippergz 10y ago
  I have my home automation stuff hooked up to Alexa also, and no, it's not always easier to do it with my hands. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I am often baffled by this "I'll just use the light switch" response to home automation. It's not that you can't "just use the light switch," but there are situations where it makes life measurably better to not have to. First world problems, for sure, but they exist. For example, if I'm sitting comfortably in my recliner and I decide I want to watch a movie, it's pretty great to be able to tap a few buttons on my phone to dim the lights without getting up. It's even better to now be able to say "alexa, turn on movie lights" to do it without digging out and unlocking my phone. Or if I'm making dinner, feeling hot, and my hands are covered in tomato juice, it's awfully nice to be able to adjust the air conditioner by voice. These aren't life changing things, but they are pretty nice luxuries that have increased my family's quality of life.

iamleppert 10y ago

I don't get the fascination with this tech. The computer in Star Trek at least had a personality and intonation in its voice when it responded, even though it sounded like a synthesized voice. The key here is intonation -- the infinitely varying way in which we vary the speed and pitch of our voices in response to another human being. It's very subtle and something Amaazon, Google and Siri have been unable to capture. And it makes interacting with these interfaces awkward and annoying to me. Either it needs to be perfect or it gets relegated to a "that's neat" category and promptly shut off. When I talk to one of these things, it's downright painful. It's like speaking to a someone who's (at least interacting in english, I'm sure its true of other languages) primary language isn't english and they are just saying a series of words without any meaning behind them. You tolerate this (although its still annoying) because you're interacting with a human being on the other end, not some white or beige box. The issue behind this of course is these devices will likely never be able to master intonation, because doing so would be a feat that would require clear understanding of subtle context, far greater than what current NLP technology can do, and may even require a general intelligence. It might be possible, I'm not up to date on the current state of the art but certainly wouldn't be computationally feasible in a consumer product any time soon. Until then, I'll never buy or use one of these stupid voice interfaces. I can get the same task done on my phone or whatever UI without the annoyance.

stuart78 10y ago
I understand what you mean, but for me, she has developed something of a personality. It is kind of a bumbling but well intentioned friend. Similar to my Roomba which is not the best at what he does, but keeps on trying (i.e. bumping futilely into the same walls).
vorpalhex 10y ago
Google Home is starting to get there, especially in the games where the total set of commands and responses is much lower. It definitely has room to grow, but it'll get there given time. VR was terrible in the 90s, now it's breathtaking.
rlpb 10y ago
I think the value of these systems is when you have your hands full, or when getting out your phone or other UI is not convenient. "Alexa, turn on the lights". "Alexa, let the cat out". "Alexa, did I lock the door?" As soon as there are enough of these, it'll take off because it'll be useful. None of these things need real intelligence. Sure, intonation won't be great. But the convenience will override the imperfection.

snarf21 10y ago

I don't get this rant. Alexa is still bleeding edge. It does some things really well. It does some things really poorly. There are lots of things it can't do. So the main complaint is that Alexa could be better, your point..? To me, right now it excels as an interface when you are busy doing something else. Ours is used most in the kitchen and living room. Timers, streaming music/audio and basic facts all work great. Home automation is improving and will get there as systems learn to play nice. That seems like a lot for $50, but maybe that's just me... The killer app hasn't been created yet (and possibly not even envisioned). I can't wait until they are connected and I can issue a command to move streaming from one device to another one in another room ("Alexa, pause for Jim", "Alexa, continue for Jim"). I think the biggest downside of voice UI right now is a lack of authentication. Someone outside the window could yell "Alexa, open the door".

010a 10y ago
> I can't wait until they are connected and I can issue a command to move streaming from one device to another one in another room Google Home can do this to a degree today. You are capable of saying things like "Play X on my TV." if your TV is wired up with a ChromeCast. In general, Google Home is very far ahead of Alexa. I agree with the opinion that Alexa is a glorified radio, but I don't believe that opinion extends to all devices in that class. I think its just because Alexa is overrated and not very powerful.
- notyourwork 10y ago
  You give a really vanilla use case and than suggest Google Home is superior. Can you give me a use case where it actually demonstrates it is far ahead. The Chromecast example isn't supporting your claim in my opinion.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    Entertainment is the biggest use care for these devices IMO; Music and TV. I haven't used an Echo in a while, but it had nothing for TV and wasn't that great at music at the time. Does it have good support for both now?

herbturbo 10y ago

I only got the Dot a couple of weeks ago and for me it's worth the $50 just for playing music. Anyone who thinks it is a "glorified radio clock" might want to just take some time to think about exactly what it's doing. I'm kind of amazed by it.

SomewhatLikely 10y ago

Mine has largely been relegated to "decent non-portable Bluetooth speaker". Google's Home doesn't even support Bluetooth, but you can "cast" to it.

makecheck 10y ago

I think they really need to work on how to report problems succinctly. A simple error tone would be fine, combined with some recognized follow-up command like “what happened” or “tell me more”; in other words, assume by default that the person probably just mumbled and is about to repeat the real command. Instead, Alexa likes to spew out multi-sentence explanations when there is a problem, and trying to talk over all of that to get Alexa’s attention again is very irritating. Usually I end up trying to talk at the same time and it may or may not listen. Imagine Alexa saying all of this kind of stuff: “I am sorry, the Thing I Think You Asked Me About But You Did Not Actually Ask Me About is not available right now. I cannot find a solution. Please go to Amazon dot com slash Something Else You Most Definitely Did Not Ask About, and visit the solutions web page.”. While all of that unnecessary verbiage is being barked out, I am usually saying something like: “Alexa...Alexa...ALEXA, turn on the...ALEXA, turn on the...ALEXA STOP!!! Alexa, turn on the lights.”.

mafro 10y ago

This guy seems to be most upset about not being able to search Google verbally. Alexa has its skills, but random search is not its finest display of talent (Bing?)

ignorantguy 10y ago

I stopped setting alarms on alexa, since it does not stop when I ask it to stop. I had to unplug it once which was really annoying.

scosman 10y ago

This article misses the point. Alexa is interesting because it's a new user interface (voice + always listening), not because it's "an AI". Imo, it's the biggest UI jump since the touchscreen phone. The tech that enables the UI will continue to improve, but it doesn't need to be a general purpose conversational AI to be successful.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

Well, a good point that there is no AI except for speech recognition, but, overlooks the utility of hands-free operation. In scenarios like cooking, in jacuzzi/bath/shower, or just when you are some distance from the device, it is useful to control listening to audio books, music, NPR radio, etc., my family owns two Echoes and get good use from them.

blubb-fish 10y ago

52 comments and nobody mentions the NSA. Are you people aware that this is essentially a glorified bug?

slantaclaus 10y ago
I was at a multifamily technology conference in San Diego last year and during a panel with some 'experts', brought up the concern of devices like Amazon Echo recording people's conversations. The lady who responded misunderstood me and chimed in within something like: "you know, I haven't even thought of that. There are many opportunities for revenue with this technology". But that was an evil uber-landlord, not sure where Amazon stands on this. If they want to increase adoption for this technology, they better come up with a solid privacy policy and stand behind it.
- blubb-fish 10y ago
  A policy won't help against the NSA. And technologically the language processing "necessarily" takes place in the cloud. For that everything you say needs to be sent through the web. Amazon will store everything they can for the purpose of later using this as a training data set.
  - mercer 10y ago
    > And technologically the language processing "necessarily" takes place in the cloud. Is that actually true? And if so, how far are we from being able to do this on the device itself?
Pyxl101 10y ago
Have you considered that maybe other people have thought about this and reached a different conclusion? I think calling it an NSA bug is pretty silly if you have a smartphone or laptop. How are those not bugs? All of these devices have microphones. The Echo is less likely to be used as a bug than any other device because it's simple and single-purpose. When you are not using it, it is idle and will not use network throughput. That's trivially easy to monitor with my router. I can see how many gigabytes of data my TV downloads. If an Echo started consuming network throughput to upload audio when I was not using it, then that would be extremely suspicious and easy to notice. This ease of detection makes it a terrible covert surveillance device. By comparison, I have little visibility into what my phone is streaming over its cellular connection, and devices like laptops, PCs, and Xboxes are so complicated that I cannot expect their network usage to be idle. It is unsurprising for these devices to download/upload potentially gigabytes of data while not in use, because some software has decided to patch in the background. These devices have local storage and could buffer audio and upload it during times of legitimate network activity. There is a lot of network activity in which covert surveillance could hide. This is not so with the Echo. Additionally, your phone and laptop are far more juicy targets for the NSA or any attacker. These devices have your data! An attacker can break in and steal your documents or passwords or other data. And then they can also activate the microphone and listen to you! The Echo doesn't have any data on it, so it's not a juicy target. It's also stationary in one room and has far less ability to conduct effective surveillance on someone than the cell phone or laptop that they carry with them everywhere. Someone isn't going to take their Echo with them to the mosque or an important business meeting or whatever. The Echo is far less complicated than smartphones and laptops (less stuff running on it), and so is less likely to have software defects that can be exploited remotely by attackers.

WheelsAtLarge 10y ago

This article is a case of over expectations. Echo IS a great clock radio and that's fine with me. The great part about it is the ability to access my music. If I want to hear x all I have to do is ask for it. 5 years ago I would never have had expected to be able to that for less than $50.00. Everything else that comes with it is just icing on the cake. We are still years away, if ever, from the Star Trek computer. And that's fine. Keep your expectations in check and you can see that it's excellent technology --with a great future.