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I really want to agree, but those are different tasks. Apple and Amazon attempt to focus on monetizable parts of NLP flows meaning optimization for narrow use c

by chaoz_ 4y ago

I really want to agree, but those are different tasks. Apple and Amazon attempt to focus on monetizable parts of NLP flows meaning optimization for narrow use cases (play music, order me a book, etc) and OpenAI can share an impressive chat bot, to just see how that plays out and generate extra PR. Pretty sure Apple and Amazon are capable of improving their voice-assistants, the question is whether they decide to invest into it. OpenAI is relatively young and is "quicker" than large orgs, as it's a startup with top-notch talent.

krsdcbl 4y ago
I think that's rather a case of hindsight as we now realise and agree that Alexa, Siri etc won't evolve past this crude monetization scheme. They began as very much what you describe though, to generate pr and make their underlying ecosystems seem more attractive and advanced.
- ignoramous 4y ago
  Not really. Amazon has already started working on "generalizable intelligence" [0] for Alexa inspired by GPT-3 (as they say so themselves) and released to production at least one model (viz Alexa Teacher Model) based on that effort: https://archive.is/gItZq https://archive.is/gItZq / https://www.amazon.science/blog/scaling-multilingual-virtual-assistants-to-1-000-languages https://www.amazon.science/blog/scaling-multilingual-virtual... [0] https://archive.is/UlCpM https://archive.is/UlCpM / https://www.amazon.science/blog/alexas-head-scientist-on-conversational-exploration-ambient-ai https://www.amazon.science/blog/alexas-head-scientist-on-con...
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    Worth mentioning that article is from last June, but in December Amazon laid off 10,000 people, most of which were in the Alexa division. https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/12/06/amazon-stock-news-amazon-alexa-layoffs-jeff-bezos-updates/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/12/06/amazon-stock-new...
    - jldugger 4y ago
      > in December Amazon laid off 10,000 people, most of which were in the Alexa division Maybe the new tech worked _really well_.
- shagie 4y ago
  The question is what are the respective companies trying to get it to do. Apple appears to try to make Siri an well defined interface to specific apps that offer specific services. Looking at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit you can see specific intents and workflows that Siri can hook into. This makes it rather limited but for the things that it can do, it does. To that end, Apple isn't trying to monetize Siri - its trying to be a hands free interface to specific tasks that apps can do. Amazon was trying to make Alexa a general tool (and they've reduced those capabilities over the years) running on AWS with additional goals of providing additional monetization routes. Things like "A book by an author you follow was released, would you like to add it to your cart?" Personally, I never found the chat more than a curiosity and even less so now that there is no knowledge engine backing the general knowledge questions.
comboy 4y ago
Oh come on, I haven't tested it lately but for like 5 years, if you asked Google, "play Mozart next" it would say it can't find "Mozart next". Even with the most common use cases it doesn't even try. One coder, one evening, simple pattern matching + a few rules and it could be improved so much. I simply don't understand how they can keep it so bad for so long. There were more examples like this, I don't really have a list since I gave up on it.
- fragmede 4y ago
  I don't know what you're talking about. "play Mozart next" opens Spotify and selects Mozart for me. if anything, it's too eager to play music. Sometimes it thinks turning off the lights is a request to play a song.
  - criddell 4y ago
    Now try “play two Mozart songs, a Bruce Springsteen song, and then four flaming lips songs” or ask it to play Dark Side of the Moon in alphabetical order.
    - diclofenac 4y ago
      If these were actual requests humans would make, I’m sure it would not be a difficult task to implement such functionality. Your example requests are at best extreme outliers, and not good tests of smart home assistants.
      - rcarmo 4y ago
        I would be happy to be able to schedule lighting and media properly. Just the basics actually working would be great.
      - criddell 4y ago
        I think the point is that you shouldn’t have to explicitly implement any of this stuff. It should “understand” basic commands that include sequences and counts. It seems like ChatGPT could be a giant leap ahead of the current crop of home assistants.
d0mine 4y ago
The article mentions that “API will cost around $0.014 per request.”

by chaoz_ 4y ago

krsdcbl 4y ago

I think that's rather a case of hindsight as we now realise and agree that Alexa, Siri etc won't evolve past this crude monetization scheme. They began as very much what you describe though, to generate pr and make their underlying ecosystems seem more attractive and advanced.

ignoramous 4y ago
Not really. Amazon has already started working on "generalizable intelligence" [0] for Alexa inspired by GPT-3 (as they say so themselves) and released to production at least one model (viz Alexa Teacher Model) based on that effort: https://archive.is/gItZq https://archive.is/gItZq / https://www.amazon.science/blog/scaling-multilingual-virtual-assistants-to-1-000-languages https://www.amazon.science/blog/scaling-multilingual-virtual... [0] https://archive.is/UlCpM https://archive.is/UlCpM / https://www.amazon.science/blog/alexas-head-scientist-on-conversational-exploration-ambient-ai https://www.amazon.science/blog/alexas-head-scientist-on-con...
- Karunamon 4y ago
  Worth mentioning that article is from last June, but in December Amazon laid off 10,000 people, most of which were in the Alexa division. https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/12/06/amazon-stock-news-amazon-alexa-layoffs-jeff-bezos-updates/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/12/06/amazon-stock-new...
  - jldugger 4y ago
    > in December Amazon laid off 10,000 people, most of which were in the Alexa division Maybe the new tech worked _really well_.
shagie 4y ago
The question is what are the respective companies trying to get it to do. Apple appears to try to make Siri an well defined interface to specific apps that offer specific services. Looking at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit you can see specific intents and workflows that Siri can hook into. This makes it rather limited but for the things that it can do, it does. To that end, Apple isn't trying to monetize Siri - its trying to be a hands free interface to specific tasks that apps can do. Amazon was trying to make Alexa a general tool (and they've reduced those capabilities over the years) running on AWS with additional goals of providing additional monetization routes. Things like "A book by an author you follow was released, would you like to add it to your cart?" Personally, I never found the chat more than a curiosity and even less so now that there is no knowledge engine backing the general knowledge questions.

comboy 4y ago

Oh come on, I haven't tested it lately but for like 5 years, if you asked Google, "play Mozart next" it would say it can't find "Mozart next". Even with the most common use cases it doesn't even try. One coder, one evening, simple pattern matching + a few rules and it could be improved so much. I simply don't understand how they can keep it so bad for so long. There were more examples like this, I don't really have a list since I gave up on it.

fragmede 4y ago
I don't know what you're talking about. "play Mozart next" opens Spotify and selects Mozart for me. if anything, it's too eager to play music. Sometimes it thinks turning off the lights is a request to play a song.
- criddell 4y ago
  Now try “play two Mozart songs, a Bruce Springsteen song, and then four flaming lips songs” or ask it to play Dark Side of the Moon in alphabetical order.
  - diclofenac 4y ago
    If these were actual requests humans would make, I’m sure it would not be a difficult task to implement such functionality. Your example requests are at best extreme outliers, and not good tests of smart home assistants.
    - rcarmo 4y ago
      I would be happy to be able to schedule lighting and media properly. Just the basics actually working would be great.
    - criddell 4y ago
      I think the point is that you shouldn’t have to explicitly implement any of this stuff. It should “understand” basic commands that include sequences and counts. It seems like ChatGPT could be a giant leap ahead of the current crop of home assistants.

d0mine 4y ago

The article mentions that “API will cost around $0.014 per request.”