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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 s

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.
- ehnto 10y ago
  That's all I would ever want from an AI. I don't even need complicated answers, just a repeat of the requested task and maybe a confirmation before going ahead. More like air traffic control than a nuanced buttler. That also lowers the possibility of it developing emotions and trying to subvert global politics from my toaster.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  All solutions looking for a problem. Exactly the opposite approach of what's been drilled into us.
Fiahil 10y ago
The issue of intonation, here, isn't a technical one. I did my third years' internship in a 3 people startup, lost in the middle of the french countryside. And we were working on a software that could generate complete weather bulletin for any european city (>50k inhabitants) or simply deliver a personalized voicemail (with names, dates, past purchases) like any human would do. In fact people were calling back the number we gave, asking for "jeremy", the bot. It was really good and it was less than 1k lines of python code (embedded in django). So, if Amazon wanted it to be something more than a marketing fluff then could -probably- do something about it.
- rlpb 10y ago
  Being "really good" may not be enough. If it's not perfect, being "really good" could actually make it worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
  - Fiahil 10y ago
    http://www.creawavestudio.com/interfaces_vocales/ http://www.creawavestudio.com/interfaces_vocales/ Is it good enough for you? :) Note: I worked there in 2013, they are smart people. And yes, these are _computer generated_ messages, with human voices.
    - hectormalot 10y ago
      That's actually pretty neat! So how come other voices don't match this? Is it the fact that intonation in a single domain (weather) is easier to predict than if the voice needs to handle general (broad) topics of conversation?
      - Fiahil 10y ago
        It's not about the topic, but mostly the technique. You have to record and process a few hours of human speech in a studio (when I was there the "studio" was a closet with blankets on the wall). Most of the words are not cut in the same way as others text-to-speech engine would do, to preserve intonation, hence longer recording times and a "grammar" limited to the the span of the recorded vocabulary (see if you can catch how the topic is always about the rain. Maybe it was due to us being in britany, a very rainy french region) However, given the number of complaints here, I don't think a cap on the number of topics she can discuss would be an issue for Alexa.
helthanatos 10y ago
I think I like the Google voice best. Still doesn't compare to Microsoft Sam, though...
- criddell 10y ago
  Is that the same as Talking Sam on the C64? That was the first synthesized speech I ever got to play with. I also had the speech module on my TI-99/4A. That was pretty sweet. That led to me buying a bunch of SPO256 chips from Radio Shack that I eventually wired to up to a little line-following robot that I made. I was the only one that could understand it.

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.

ehnto 10y ago
That's all I would ever want from an AI. I don't even need complicated answers, just a repeat of the requested task and maybe a confirmation before going ahead. More like air traffic control than a nuanced buttler. That also lowers the possibility of it developing emotions and trying to subvert global politics from my toaster.
rorykoehler 10y ago
All solutions looking for a problem. Exactly the opposite approach of what's been drilled into us.

Fiahil 10y ago

The issue of intonation, here, isn't a technical one. I did my third years' internship in a 3 people startup, lost in the middle of the french countryside. And we were working on a software that could generate complete weather bulletin for any european city (>50k inhabitants) or simply deliver a personalized voicemail (with names, dates, past purchases) like any human would do. In fact people were calling back the number we gave, asking for "jeremy", the bot. It was really good and it was less than 1k lines of python code (embedded in django). So, if Amazon wanted it to be something more than a marketing fluff then could -probably- do something about it.

rlpb 10y ago
Being "really good" may not be enough. If it's not perfect, being "really good" could actually make it worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
- Fiahil 10y ago
  http://www.creawavestudio.com/interfaces_vocales/ http://www.creawavestudio.com/interfaces_vocales/ Is it good enough for you? :) Note: I worked there in 2013, they are smart people. And yes, these are _computer generated_ messages, with human voices.
  - hectormalot 10y ago
    That's actually pretty neat! So how come other voices don't match this? Is it the fact that intonation in a single domain (weather) is easier to predict than if the voice needs to handle general (broad) topics of conversation?
    - Fiahil 10y ago
      It's not about the topic, but mostly the technique. You have to record and process a few hours of human speech in a studio (when I was there the "studio" was a closet with blankets on the wall). Most of the words are not cut in the same way as others text-to-speech engine would do, to preserve intonation, hence longer recording times and a "grammar" limited to the the span of the recorded vocabulary (see if you can catch how the topic is always about the rain. Maybe it was due to us being in britany, a very rainy french region) However, given the number of complaints here, I don't think a cap on the number of topics she can discuss would be an issue for Alexa.

helthanatos 10y ago

I think I like the Google voice best. Still doesn't compare to Microsoft Sam, though...

criddell 10y ago
Is that the same as Talking Sam on the C64? That was the first synthesized speech I ever got to play with. I also had the speech module on my TI-99/4A. That was pretty sweet. That led to me buying a bunch of SPO256 chips from Radio Shack that I eventually wired to up to a little line-following robot that I made. I was the only one that could understand it.