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It would be interesting to make an Alexa-style device, which instead of natural language used a set of composable voice commands, like Bash and the unix utiliti

It would be interesting to make an Alexa-style device, which instead of natural language used a set of composable voice commands, like Bash and the unix utilities but pronouncable.

Galaxeblaffer 8y ago
Google home already kind of have this, don't know about Alexa. I'm amazed at how simple commands can be when you learn the simplest form of a command. And you could of course go nuts with ifttt and create your own syntax
- jackthetab 8y ago
  Details wrt the first paragraph, please.
- ekovarski 8y ago
  Are you referring to Google Home being able to stack up a few commands or the routines feature? eg Google, whats the weather and set a timer for 15min? On Alexa you can enable a follow up mode which listens to the next command for a bit. It's a bit more natural, e.g. Alexa, whats the weather... you wait for her to complete, she then listens again and you can say, Set timer for 15min, she completes and listens, Read news, etc. Sometimes I just feel like the machines are teaching us how they would like to be talked to vs us teaching them, as some commands require specific verbal markers in proper order to complete as otherwise they just give you a completely random answer or they simply don't process it at all.
ProxCoques 8y ago
Yes. At the moment, voice interfaces are a novelty and it makes sense that we're assuming they will use the language we use. But I wonder if that will continue? Given one of the problems with voice interfaces is false triggering between humans and machines and humans and humans ("You want to know what?" "No, I was just talking to Alexa!" "Sorry, I can't find any results for that.") I wonder if in the far future we will have worked out a "machine language" partly for this reason. It might be a bit like radio procedure words mixed with "machine syntax". So rather than "Alexa, give me a list of the top ten companies by market capitalisation", or "Alexa, who was the director of the Poseidon Adventure?" you'd say "Chip list market capitalisation companies ten" or "Chip, director Poseidon Adventure", where "Chip" is the universal signal for invoking voice commands (followed optionally by the name of the device you're addressing) and the grammar of the query is ordered from general to specific. This would minimise linguistic ambiguities and allows accurate but imprecise answers if necessary (eg if the machine can't order by market cap). It might also be sufficiently different for humans in earshot to screen it out. There might be specialised words too, similar the Bash and the unix utilities you mentio (eg for recalling queries and modifying them, stealth mode invocation, even piping perhaps).

It would be interesting to make an Alexa-style device, which instead of natural language used a set of composable voice commands, like Bash and the unix utilities but pronouncable.

Galaxeblaffer 8y ago

Google home already kind of have this, don't know about Alexa. I'm amazed at how simple commands can be when you learn the simplest form of a command. And you could of course go nuts with ifttt and create your own syntax

jackthetab 8y ago
Details wrt the first paragraph, please.
ekovarski 8y ago
Are you referring to Google Home being able to stack up a few commands or the routines feature? eg Google, whats the weather and set a timer for 15min? On Alexa you can enable a follow up mode which listens to the next command for a bit. It's a bit more natural, e.g. Alexa, whats the weather... you wait for her to complete, she then listens again and you can say, Set timer for 15min, she completes and listens, Read news, etc. Sometimes I just feel like the machines are teaching us how they would like to be talked to vs us teaching them, as some commands require specific verbal markers in proper order to complete as otherwise they just give you a completely random answer or they simply don't process it at all.

ProxCoques 8y ago

Yes. At the moment, voice interfaces are a novelty and it makes sense that we're assuming they will use the language we use. But I wonder if that will continue? Given one of the problems with voice interfaces is false triggering between humans and machines and humans and humans ("You want to know what?" "No, I was just talking to Alexa!" "Sorry, I can't find any results for that.") I wonder if in the far future we will have worked out a "machine language" partly for this reason. It might be a bit like radio procedure words mixed with "machine syntax". So rather than "Alexa, give me a list of the top ten companies by market capitalisation", or "Alexa, who was the director of the Poseidon Adventure?" you'd say "Chip list market capitalisation companies ten" or "Chip, director Poseidon Adventure", where "Chip" is the universal signal for invoking voice commands (followed optionally by the name of the device you're addressing) and the grammar of the query is ordered from general to specific. This would minimise linguistic ambiguities and allows accurate but imprecise answers if necessary (eg if the machine can't order by market cap). It might also be sufficiently different for humans in earshot to screen it out. There might be specialised words too, similar the Bash and the unix utilities you mentio (eg for recalling queries and modifying them, stealth mode invocation, even piping perhaps).