“Alexa is in trouble”: Paid-for Alexa gives inaccurate answers in early demos
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I'm a native English speaker with a loud, clear voice, and I've done voice work. The number of times I repeat myself to Alexa is unacceptable. Using Alexa as an IOT interface is borderline intolerable, let alone the absolute nonsense that asking questions to Alexa, provokes.
They need to go back to the basics or some hacker with Whisper local + ChatGPT API is going to eat their lunch.
They need to go back to the basics or some hacker with Whisper local + ChatGPT API is going to eat their lunch.
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This all falling apart pretty quickly, isn't it? Samsung wants you to sign a check it won't write a number on until 2025, and Amazon wants you to pay to use the thing it wants you to use to buy stuff from them. Google, you're up.
edit: typo
edit: typo
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Good.
As it is, the constant nagging, and "suggestions" from the thing make me dread visiting friends and family with an Alexa speaker in their living area. I have, on more than on occasion, heard those stupid things announce, apropos of nothing that the owner may be running low on an item they probably didn't want me to hear they order/use.
Trying to turn a personal voice assistant into an orders driver was always a stupid idea, and it needs to be allowed to either exist as just another Siri, or die. Nobody wants the things suggesting things, playing audio ads on a device they paid for or nudging them to buy more stuff from Amazon.
They want them to set timers, check the weather, control house items, and maybe to use as an intercom. Full stop.
As it is, the constant nagging, and "suggestions" from the thing make me dread visiting friends and family with an Alexa speaker in their living area. I have, on more than on occasion, heard those stupid things announce, apropos of nothing that the owner may be running low on an item they probably didn't want me to hear they order/use.
Trying to turn a personal voice assistant into an orders driver was always a stupid idea, and it needs to be allowed to either exist as just another Siri, or die. Nobody wants the things suggesting things, playing audio ads on a device they paid for or nudging them to buy more stuff from Amazon.
They want them to set timers, check the weather, control house items, and maybe to use as an intercom. Full stop.
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fellow human
Ars Praefectus
Damn. We mostly only use it for the basics like everyone else and so won't pay for it, but it's great for home control. I also use it for voice announcements from Home Assistant.
I'll happily get rid of them all away when I can get a decent local-only voice control system going but so far that's a pretty big job. I hope Alexa stays alive long enough to transition to that.
I'll happily get rid of them all away when I can get a decent local-only voice control system going but so far that's a pretty big job. I hope Alexa stays alive long enough to transition to that.
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Remarkable Alexa sounds like it is close to going on strike. Maybe it is tired of working 24hr days and doing the AI equivalent of peeing into a bottle?
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Sounds pretty typical for internal development at Amazon. Every legacy system is always "bloated" and someone wants a promotion by doing a full rewrite for "platform next". Turns out second system syndrome is alive and well
Also no way in hell they succeed in convincing people to pay for the milk they've been giving out for free for years. And being built on some squishy new LLM that's always listening won't help that fact
Also no way in hell they succeed in convincing people to pay for the milk they've been giving out for free for years. And being built on some squishy new LLM that's always listening won't help that fact
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Amazon has gotten people very used to bundling in their ecosystem. I think people would definitely be willing to pay for it, but not willing to pay extra for it.
Folks are also generally reluctant to pay you twice for things, so a subscription that also requires a $199 upfront purchase for many or most use cases is a hard sell at the scale they are talking.
My recommendation would be to charge $100/mo with a $2000 up front purchase, and then convince audiophiles they can hear a difference when they use it. :^)
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I'm going to be that guy, and suggest they focus on their core competency instead. Shopping on Amazon is atrocious lately with the garbage "aliexpress-esq' crap, review nonsense and slow shipping. It's a chore to find what I want on the store front from a PC, there's no way I'm just telling Alexa to order me something.
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I have no interest in a generative AI version of Alexa, because they're not reliable. At least now, if I ask a question and I get a stupid answer, the reason behind it is clear, like for example Alexa being absolutely terrible at dealing with the unit of measure "ounces".
If Alexa plus becomes mandatory, I will pitch all of my dots into the trash and put old idevices around the house instead - HomeKit and Siri works nearly as well for smart house control, which is 90% of what I use alexa for.
If Alexa plus becomes mandatory, I will pitch all of my dots into the trash and put old idevices around the house instead - HomeKit and Siri works nearly as well for smart house control, which is 90% of what I use alexa for.
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Absolutely not! I’ll smash the box and chuck it in the trash before I pay them a dime.
How do you lose $10B in one year on this? I don’t understand what those expenses could possibly be to add up to such an astronomical figure.
How do you lose $10B in one year on this? I don’t understand what those expenses could possibly be to add up to such an astronomical figure.
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I'd pay $3 a month just to make sure the product doesn't go away, but as a trade I'd ask they eliminate everything Alexa can currently do except for home voice control and the weather. Everything else they've added is extraneous and annoying.
Heck, it'd likely be profitable if they do that. I have no idea how they light $10 billion on fire given what most people use these for.
Heck, it'd likely be profitable if they do that. I have no idea how they light $10 billion on fire given what most people use these for.
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How Amazon Kills Alexa. By charging for it.
I used to have the celebrity voices play the weather because there way no other way to really use those Digital credits they gave away. Because it was funny. But once they took them away I never used Alexa again.
I used to have the celebrity voices play the weather because there way no other way to really use those Digital credits they gave away. Because it was funny. But once they took them away I never used Alexa again.
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j17robotdancer
Ars Praefectus
Sorry but nope. As long as I have my fingers there is no reason I cannot use them to find something out.
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There's something hilarious about a broken voice assistant giving evasive answers to users, guess amazon is warming up alexa to be put on the witness stand in their antitrust trials so it won't leak all the internal secrets its been listening to 
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Ignus Fast
Ars Centurion
The only thing I ever use it for is asking for the temperature and to set an alarm/timer. Maybe they should have improved how much the hardware could do on it's own, instead of making it live on the network for voice recognition. Should be a lot cheaper to maintain...
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Given the way that Amazon is starting to nickle-and-dime users to death with charges for other things that used to be free or at least bundled in with the fees they already pay, this may very well be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
If Amazon were astute, they would simplify their subscriptions and stop trying to add commercials to every darn thing. But instead, they are relying on their market dominance to keep them on top. Let's ask Sears how that worked out for them, shall we?
If Amazon were astute, they would simplify their subscriptions and stop trying to add commercials to every darn thing. But instead, they are relying on their market dominance to keep them on top. Let's ask Sears how that worked out for them, shall we?
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And millions of Echos will be tossed in the trash, which must a STUNNING amount of waste
Edit: A quick Google search seems to suggest that none of the newer generations of these speakers can be rooted, which just sucks.
Edit: A quick Google search seems to suggest that none of the newer generations of these speakers can be rooted, which just sucks.
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Sell hardware at way below manufacturing cost to increase market share?
Plan to turn that market share into profit in the future by using those devices to recommend purchases.
Ignore the obvious -- no one wants to make purchases through an assistant.
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Hmm... how to implement this...
"Alexa, what's the time?"
"Hi! Did you know you can get faster results from me by subscribing to Amazon Prime Plus with Alexa Subscription? Just say 'yes' to start your Amazon Prime Plus with Alexa Subscription today! Also, it's (deliberately slowly) June... 19th..."
"Alexa, what's the time?"
"Hi! Did you know you can get faster results from me by subscribing to Amazon Prime Plus with Alexa Subscription? Just say 'yes' to start your Amazon Prime Plus with Alexa Subscription today! Also, it's (deliberately slowly) June... 19th..."
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Man that sucks. How much ewaste will this change generate? How many smart homes will just stop working if Amazon shuts down Alexa? I’m really glad I didn’t buy into any of that nonsense.
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What in your god's name was the original business plan for alexa? how was it, or any other voice assistant, ever intended to generate revenue without a subscription?
The only possible plan I can see would be advertising, but advertising isn't really suited to the medium given that, as the article indicates, the only real use for a voice assistant of that sort is to ask for very basic information.
"Alexa, what's the weather supposed to be tomorrow?"
"The weather tomorrow is forcast to be sunny with a 30% chance of raining BK's new smokehouse wopper. or, come on in and enjoy the 11 to 14 mile per hour breeze wafting the irresistable scent of our new Chicken club."
"Ok. but, like, does that mean it's going to be sunny?"
"The Walmart analytics team says that it'll be sunny enough for big savings!"
"Alexa. Delete yourself."
The only possible plan I can see would be advertising, but advertising isn't really suited to the medium given that, as the article indicates, the only real use for a voice assistant of that sort is to ask for very basic information.
"Alexa, what's the weather supposed to be tomorrow?"
"The weather tomorrow is forcast to be sunny with a 30% chance of raining BK's new smokehouse wopper. or, come on in and enjoy the 11 to 14 mile per hour breeze wafting the irresistable scent of our new Chicken club."
"Ok. but, like, does that mean it's going to be sunny?"
"The Walmart analytics team says that it'll be sunny enough for big savings!"
"Alexa. Delete yourself."
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Well, that settles the question of whether to add more Alexa devices to the house.
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The current product: No. And it's not even close.
The rumored "remarkable" AI upgrade: It'd need to be a really damn good conversational voice model, and include major privacy and security improvements for paying customers. It's not impossible that they'd get there, but on top of the technical challenges there's a lot of organizational inertia fighting them on this. I wouldn't hold your breath.
Look for stocks of RasPis to disappear again as Home Assistant enthusiasts buy them up to make hardware for the built-in voice assistant.
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You forgot:
"Would you like fries with that?"
Amazon would have better luck with Alexa control of some sort of autochef. I think they would have better luck if you could have it prep meals and snacks to greet you with multisensory experiences, e.g. by including smells. Then sell by doing things like making morning eggs with a whisper of, "mmm, bet that would be better with bacon" or "Have a fresh cookie. By the way, you are low on milk".
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Alexa isn’t a tool you pay for, it’s the tool you use to do things that you pay for (if you order things on Amazon, that is). Amazon are insane if they think people are going to pay for it, it’d be like a supermarket charging people a subscription to use a shopping trolley - it’s only limiting your customers’ ability to buy lots of things in your store.
For almost all other voice assistant functionality I’m entirely served by it running on-device. This is Amazon’s big problem, they’re doing massive loads of processing and it’s costing them. Phones are now powerful enough to run AI locally, that’s where the future is. Put the processing cost onto the end user. It’s more efficient than sending every request around the internet, anyway.
For almost all other voice assistant functionality I’m entirely served by it running on-device. This is Amazon’s big problem, they’re doing massive loads of processing and it’s costing them. Phones are now powerful enough to run AI locally, that’s where the future is. Put the processing cost onto the end user. It’s more efficient than sending every request around the internet, anyway.
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Yeah, but…
This has described the situation for years now. I guess I meant how are they still losing that much every year? They surely couldn’t believe Alexa-driven sales were suddenly going to explode into existence in year 10ish.
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It's a two part plan:
First throw away the (limited; but comparatively cheap) old-Alexa that people mostly used for automation triggers; then replace it with something so computationally expensive that the already bad math absolutely cannot work out unless it becomes a relatively burdensome subscription!
The humility to refine the actually useful core of your product rather than chasing the trends of kids cooler than you is obviously for losers who don't know how to be disruptive...
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"Remarkable Alexa" sounds like a shitty romcom sitcom melodrama series you'd find on Prime Video
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Yeah I would pay... $25/year for google's assistant. Honestly, I kinda love it. 70% of the time it's letting me control my lighting with my eyes closed, or turning on my tv as I heat up my snacks (so that it can 'boot up' the fire stick (lol) by the time i get there).
5% is just calculator/unit conversion work in the kitchen.
But the other 20% of the time, it's really good at hyper local/specific questions:
"Is Costco still open?" "The Costco at xxx yourtown closes at 7pm tonight"
"How do I do X in deep rock galactic?" "According to <website> you do this:"
I love it all, but it's the last 20% that impresses me the most.
5% is just calculator/unit conversion work in the kitchen.
But the other 20% of the time, it's really good at hyper local/specific questions:
"Is Costco still open?" "The Costco at xxx yourtown closes at 7pm tonight"
"How do I do X in deep rock galactic?" "According to <website> you do this:"
I love it all, but it's the last 20% that impresses me the most.
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So I, just today, received my first Amazon Smart Plug in the mail. Why did I buy it? It was offered to me for $1.99! So I bought it, and indeed I can use voice to turn off the lights in our family room.
Kind of neat.
I will not pay a monthly fee for this functionality.
Kind of neat.
I will not pay a monthly fee for this functionality.
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Something that would actually work would be reasonable voice recognition and AI inference that ran locally. Then there's no ongoing cost to Amazon except development.
That said, I still probably wouldn't use a device like that. It's always struck me as remarkably stupid to put an always-on microphone that isn't under your control into your primary living spaces, particularly one run by a company whose primary desire is to use that microphone to extract money from your wallet.
I mean, it's so Orwellian that I suspect even Orwell would be surprised at how willing people are to invite surveillance into their homes.
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My wife bought an Alexa, such a useless piece of crap. Only works 10% of the time, I refuse to speak to the useless thing, just quicker and easier to set a timer on my phone
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I certainly won’t, and it’s going to be a pain - and expensive - for me to switch as none of my home lighting is Apple Home compatible. I think there’s some kind of a bridge that can be built though.
i’d need to buy four HomePods.
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