6 ms·

Amazon has 10k employees dedicated to Alexa

26 points by rainhacker 6y ago

pixelface 6y ago
it's hard not to see this as the wasted potential of 10,000 human minds that could otherwise be solving real problems and needs. i'm curious to hear how alexa (and google assistant, et al) can be justified beyond small novelties that would be completely adequately serviced by non-cloud and/or non-voice means. i'm aware of the trickiness one can accomplish with a rube-goldberg-esque system of custom triggers, custom hardware, and carefully spoken phrases. i remain unimpressed by the segment and coupled with the significant privacy issues it feels like such a net-negative.
- ponker 6y ago
  I am a big fan of Alexa. It helps me keep track of things like timers, to-dos, grocery lists, etc. while taking care of a toddler and an infant. Is it World Peace or the Cure for Cancer? No but it's pretty cool.
Lorin 6y ago
10,000 employees and they still haven't figured to use the built-in microphone to adjust the response volume based on ambient baseline noise.
- OrangeKnucles 6y ago
  +1
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  My parents have an Alexa Show and it is incapable of showing more than 3 digits of the current DJIA, with the rest being covered with an ellipsis. And yes, there is plenty of margin on both sides; they could show the entire thing with two digits after the decimal point.
vsskanth 6y ago
And yet, "Alexa, play Cocomelon radio on Spotify" doesn't work
satya71 6y ago
It's probably mostly people involved in tagging and transcribing. It's super labor intensive to get decent results when your AI is not as good as you advertise it as.
- dwd 6y ago
  You're pretty much talking about most AI there.
- blandflakes 6y ago
  Definitely is transcribers and annotators. It's weird how much slight of hand companies due to make it look like some kind of flexible, general AI when it's really machine learning and man does that mean piles of data.
jasonv 6y ago
I use mine to listen to Radio Paradise and to have it tell me when my packages arrive at the Hub. Which is usually a couple of hours late these days, so I just rely on the email it sends earlier. So I use it just for the Radio Paradise.
perryizgr8 6y ago
And yet I've seen zero improvements in my echo since I bought it 2 years ago. It's a glorified Bluetooth speaker (it's hopeless at playing songs i ask so I just play with my phone) and a light switch. It feels literally like a big list of string matching and if conditions and not like a true NLP system.

26 points by rainhacker 6y ago

it's hard not to see this as the wasted potential of 10,000 human minds that could otherwise be solving real problems and needs. i'm curious to hear how alexa (and google assistant, et al) can be justified beyond small novelties that would be completely adequately serviced by non-cloud and/or non-voice means. i'm aware of the trickiness one can accomplish with a rube-goldberg-esque system of custom triggers, custom hardware, and carefully spoken phrases. i remain unimpressed by the segment and coupled with the significant privacy issues it feels like such a net-negative.

ponker 6y ago
I am a big fan of Alexa. It helps me keep track of things like timers, to-dos, grocery lists, etc. while taking care of a toddler and an infant. Is it World Peace or the Cure for Cancer? No but it's pretty cool.

Lorin 6y ago

10,000 employees and they still haven't figured to use the built-in microphone to adjust the response volume based on ambient baseline noise.

OrangeKnucles 6y ago
+1
OldHand2018 6y ago
My parents have an Alexa Show and it is incapable of showing more than 3 digits of the current DJIA, with the rest being covered with an ellipsis. And yes, there is plenty of margin on both sides; they could show the entire thing with two digits after the decimal point.

vsskanth 6y ago

And yet, "Alexa, play Cocomelon radio on Spotify" doesn't work

satya71 6y ago

It's probably mostly people involved in tagging and transcribing. It's super labor intensive to get decent results when your AI is not as good as you advertise it as.

dwd 6y ago
You're pretty much talking about most AI there.
blandflakes 6y ago
Definitely is transcribers and annotators. It's weird how much slight of hand companies due to make it look like some kind of flexible, general AI when it's really machine learning and man does that mean piles of data.

jasonv 6y ago

I use mine to listen to Radio Paradise and to have it tell me when my packages arrive at the Hub. Which is usually a couple of hours late these days, so I just rely on the email it sends earlier. So I use it just for the Radio Paradise.

perryizgr8 6y ago

And yet I've seen zero improvements in my echo since I bought it 2 years ago. It's a glorified Bluetooth speaker (it's hopeless at playing songs i ask so I just play with my phone) and a light switch. It feels literally like a big list of string matching and if conditions and not like a true NLP system.