"Alexa, order me the cheapest best reviewed dry dog food that will arrive tomorrow". Could that work? Would I trust that it had worked, if Alexa just said "ok" without me running off to a computer to check the order details and defeating the whole object? More likely it would turn into an exhausting game of twenty questions with the device narrowing my selection iteratively.
(I actually tried that sentence just now. Alexa remained in a stunned silence.)
Entering into a subscription with no knowledge of that, let alone any up-front information about price or other terms, is very scummy behavior. The after-the-fact email attempts to claw back a moral high ground, but it's not difficult to see it for what it is. This combines the convenience of a smart speaker with the rapacity of a cold caller who already has your credit card number. It's thinly disguised fraud, and pernicious.
I doubt anyone would be happy with "Alexa, what's the weather?" entering them into an unannounced dollar-a-day contract with The Weather Company, or if asking about soccer scores got them automatically hooked up with a $7.99 Sportsball Channel add-on to their cable bill.
But something more complicated where you really would like good voice control--like when driving--not so much. For example, with podcasts, I find I really need to pre-populate a playlist and by and large I find trying to totally control my phone by voice is very hit and miss.
Voice assistants have gotten marginally better over the years. But I really wouldn't miss them much if they all went away tomorrow. The vision was/is that they could match at least a marginally competent personal assistant over the phone. And they're nowhere even near the ballpark.
Only if the album you want is titled in English (or some recognised language and with actual words).
I listen to a lot of music that have unpronounceable song and album titles. Hell, even artists, how could I ever tell a voice assistant to play "STRGTHS by SHXCXCHCXSH"? An extreme example but not too far from some of the top 10 recently played stuff on my Spotify: "sch.mefd 2" by Autechre, "JNSN CODE GL16 / spl47" an album/EP by the same Autechre, "Hygh 2k12" by SCNTST.
It's a technology on that uncanny valley of working and simplifying some use-cases, and frustrating enough for some edge cases that you end up not trusting it, in my case making me avoid it.
Even for some basic alarms/timers it can be frustrating when it misinterprets your accent and sets timers for 50 minutes instead of 15. The pain of having to fix the failure and then re-add a timer/alarm is enough to push me away.
I’ve tried Alexa, Google, and Siri multiple times over the years while driving and it’s just embarrassing how over hyped all of them are and yet simple questions which a human could potentially easily answer in seconds doing a search (if not driving of course), but none of them even get close.
- How far away is that storm?
- How many miles to the state line?
- What timezone is Omaha in?
- Where’s the closest gas station that has diesel?
- What’s the top rated BBQ place in town?
A notable example was when I tried using it to make a call. I told it to call my wife, by name, and it couldn't understand her name at all. So I said "call my wife" and it asked who my wife is. I couldn't answer with voice, because it still didn't understand her name. But it did give me a popup to select her from my address book. So I did and the popup went away... No call. So I tell it "call my wife" and it replies "who is your wife?".
That's because you interact with it as though it is a person, so your expectation levels are corresponding to the mode of communication used.
That's 2 continuous axes and one discrete option. What if the cheapest one is the worst reviewed? What if the most expensive one is the best reviewed? What if the middle price is only slightly above the worst review? What if there's a clearly cheapest, best option that is only available in 2 days?
How do you "trust" an answer to this? What does a single choice answer even mean?
I'm not sure I'd trust a shopkeeper to make this decision for me, as they could easily rationalise not telling me about the cheap and great option if it's not in stock, or falling more on the quality than the price because they make more margin. And Amazon is in this position on this one.
I can see a market for "Alexa, order me cheap dogfood for tomorrow", but pretty much anything more complex than that I just don't think people would give the decision to a biased third party to make for them, let alone a non-human one.
The elderly woman stated she didn’t own a computer, or know how to use one.
Yes, it’s an edge case.
Not really: that person could have easily assumed that she "did not need to own a computer, nor know how to use one", as she may have easily assumed that no random "rambling" uttered into a computerized microphone could ever trigger expenses. It's a justifiable expectation.
There are plenty of ways to make the interface very usable and reliable. Fixating on the voice UI is absolutely the wrong way to see it. The real problem is that your "assistant" doesn't actually work for you.
It's a recommendation engine at that point, so what I assume it will do is buy you the products that Amazon is pushing or that have paid to be recommended. Does Alexa handle the website's small print to the effect of "there may be other vendors selling this product for a lower price than the vendor we're recommending."
This is Amazon we’re talking about. The cheapest best reviewed dog food probably has 4K excellent reviews saying it’s the best cheap coat hangar anyone has ever seen.
Her sister caught the corresponding email just before the paid subscription would have started. The documentation says developers must mark skills targeted at kids and those aren't eligible to have this flow enabled.
[1] https://developer.amazon.com/es-MX/docs/alexa/paid-skills/ov...
edit to add -- that was all presented without comment. But having a device that can start up a recurring subscription if anyone says "yes" to one prompt exist at all, and having the toggle for the feature on by default and in options is in the "no thanks" column for me.
Some of the most profitable early apps on the apps stores were Bible apps. People love their religions and will happily spend money on following them.
iirc, it all started with DarkSky, which was very reasonable, something like £1 a year, which made subscriptions for more "basic" apps acceptable, and from there its just got worse.
That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.
You have an “insane” QOL then if having a manual kitchen timer or a simple conversion chart on the wall would be a major difference.
At least with the manual kitchen timer, you can always know how much time is left just by looking. Set a ten minute timer on an Alexa, you have to threaten it with violence to keep the timer visible for more than 30 seconds of it, and that doesn’t always work either. I went so far as to literally turn off every single thing I could from the display and yet it’ll prefer showing a content less main screen over just keeping the timer displayed.
What you seem to be needing takes an old tablet and a slice of an evening of coding...
The main reason why I'll probably never buy an Alexa is because it sucks at the specific things I need it to do, but I concede that there's something liberating about just yelling at the computer and getting a reply. If I'm about to leave and I don't know which jacket to pick, being able to yell "Alexa, what's the weather like?" keeps me from switching contexts and losing my train of thought. It may not sound like much, but once you combine a bunch of small tasks it adds up.
> can inadvertently enter into premium subscriptions simply by saying yes
So this individual (sister to a journalist at the Guardian, which facilitates information spreading and highlights the possibility of under the radar cases) gives somebody else a voice controlled machine linked to a credit card. What could possibly.
Seriously though, how long before we see AI-powered therapists? Or do they exist already?
https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/the-original-elizahttps://github.com/PixelsCommander/PrayerWheel
http://pixelscommander.com/interactive-revolution/can-comput...
The highlight of the article there.