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It's not the hyperbole that I find a bit old and tiresome, it's the hubris and often utopian vision I come across from people in tech in statements like this. A
by nyxtom 7y ago
It's not the hyperbole that I find a bit old and tiresome, it's the hubris and often utopian vision I come across from people in tech in statements like this. As though there are no possible downsides.
> Prasad’s ultimate vision is to make Alexa available and useful for everyone. Even in developing countries, he imagines cheaper versions that people can access on their smartphones. “To me we are on a journey of shifting the cognitive load on routine tasks,” he says. “I want Alexa to be a productivity enhancer … to be truly ubiquitous so that it works for everyone.”
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoThat sounds too positive. It isn’t doomsday enough for the culture here. An opt-in device you need to purchase, set up, and interact with: the horrors!
- TeMPOraL 7y agoUtopian visions are fine. This vision is fine. My problem is that tech companies uttering those visions usually lie. Even in this case, there's set of business and technological decisions being made that go against the vision. As long as voice processing is done in the cloud vs. the device, as long as the device itself is tied to an account and a service (vs. just subscribing to services that provide actions which require those services), as long as it's done by amoral corporation with plenty of history of putting profit before humane behavior - Alexa will always come with privacy issues, will not be useful to everyone, and there will be business incentives to not make it a true productivity enhancer.