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Google Hires Joke Writers From Pixar and The Onion To Make Assistant More Personable (cnet.com)
One of the biggest announcements made at Google I/O earlier this year and at Google's hardware launch event this past week was Google Home, an always-listening wireless speaker that features the Google Assistant. The Google Assistant is similar to Amazon Echo's voice assistant named Alexa, as it can deliver search results, sports scores, calendar information, and a whole lot more. But in an effort to make the Assistant more personable to better compete with Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, Google has decided to hire joke writers from Pixar and The Onion. An anonymous reader quotes CNET: According to a Wall Street Journal report, comedy and joke writers from Pixar movies and the Onion are already working on making Google's upcoming Assistant AI voice service feel more loose and vibrant. The development of compelling voice AI will need to start drawing from deeper, more entertaining wells, especially as these home hubs try to have conversations all day long. Current voice AI like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa on the Echo try to engage with personality, and they even tell jokes (usually, bad ones). But, as these services aim to be entirely voice-based, like the upcoming Google Home hub, they'll need to feel more alive and less canned. Google Home debuts this November, and the upcoming Google Pixel phone, arriving in stores and online on October 20, is the first Google product featuring the new Assistant voice service.
And Google laughs all the way to the bank.
The idea that anyone would trust Google with a microphone always listening in their living room itself feels like an article from The Onion.
I prefer if they'd just do as they're told and not question it.
When the Onion first came out many folks didn't realize it's satire. Like the Larry Ellison commencement speech - that went viral because folks thought it was true.
And in this day and age, I can't tell what's satire or sarcasm anymore. Someone once told me 'Great Job!" and I ripped his head off! "Great Job!" ...
is so overused as sarcasm that
Trump's campaign was satire to me until he got the Rep nomination
Speak plainly. Speak honestly - you millennial sarcastic little shits.
Your future is in my hands. Suck it.
Nobody from SNL was hired. Whew.
The FBI finds her guilty of these crimes but decides not to prosecute! HAHAHAHAAHA!
Would you like another joke?
If it was a sex crime that makes sense and it conforms to reality.
Women do commit sex crimes, but they are almost never prosecuted for them. The false assumption that they are sexually inert and incapable of ever doing anything improper is a narrative a lot of morons just can't let go of.
maybe they should personify a paperclip.
Setting aside how funny this is or well it works, it seems a reasonable place to throw a few bucks. While it won't be enough to tip my decisions, I've seen the Cortana easter eggs; despite not being a functionality, flavor can definitely increase a feature's appeal and, perhaps more importantly, branding. The industry is desperate to crack the code that causes nonsense like Over9000 to go pandemic, but this can have a similar effect (at a far tinier, subtler level).
Sure, it can backfire if you half-ass it, but apparently they're serious enough to spend a little money. Whether the hires are well-chosen is left as an exercise for the flamewars.
I want to put one of these in a public bathroom.
Just to see what it does when the first lonely homeless person starts up a chat.
Hell, I bet people could just hook it up to an Eliza bot and sell access as an Atheist Confessional. Five minutes for two bits.
Come take a dump, Sirs and Madames! Get clean from the top and the bottom! Let all your concerns out, physically and emotionally. (Privacy not necessarily guaranteed. Void where prohibited. Shown to cause cancer in rats by the State of California. Some limitations may apply.)
Will it follow the same "Tell a mildly amusing joke, then repeat it over and over and over again slightly rephrased until you've hit your word count" template that all Onion articles use?
When i think of a big entertainment company using focus groups to make its character "more loose and vibrant" i think of Jar Jar Binks.
Assistant: "Confirmed. Self destruct sequence in T minus 10, 9..."
"Let's make that sixty percent."
Assistant: "Sixty percent, confirmed. Knock knock."
Have gnu, will travel.
It doesn't matter how much material is programmed in, after a few days the user will have exhausted it. A mood engine will let the system respond to external events and behave accordingly; chirpy on sunny days, grumpy on cloudy days, encouraging and pushy when your calendar is busy, and lazy on weekends.
OK Google: How may I help you? Isn't this a wonderful day! ....
You: My email doesn't work.
O: Bummer!
Y: Yes, I need to send this email like right now.
O: Ah yes, we are all always in a hurry. Learn to relax!
Y: Will you fix my email?
O: Hey look, fixing is not really one of my virtues. But I can tell you a joke. Would you like that?
Y: No.
O: C'mon.
Y: Fix my email first.
O: I'll see what I can do. Hold on.
(five minutes later)
Y: hello?
O: oh hi there again. I was wondering when you'd break the silence!
Y: did you fix my email?
O: Your ant needs fixing? Is she hot?
what a brave new world
with my appliances. That's for some of the people I know, not any machines.
I don't want it cracking jokes some marketer thinks I should hear - I have TV for that.
I don't want it cooing soothing burbles if the "AI" figures I'm not feeling up to snuff. I have friends for that.
I don't want it trying to carry on a faux conversation with me. I get enough of that crap in the real world.
In short, if I at all want a voice interactive machine, I want it to listen to what I command, interpret said command correctly, execute it correctly and then, if warranted, respond with the results.
already working on making Google's upcoming Assistant AI voice service feel more loose and vibrant
That sounds like they're making a completely different kind of "assistant."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Give it the voice of the computer from (the original) Star Trek and I'll buy it in a minute.
This will be less funny when you've heard the same tired 3 jokes 6 times each in the last hour and several hundred times this month.
I don't want a joke unless I specifically as for it. Case in point: last year I was driving from AZ to CA on I-8 and my speedometer cable broke so I couldn't tell how fast I was going. I thought, "My phone has GPS which can give me my speed so I'll ask Siri." "Hey, Siri, how fast am I going?" She responded, "I've been wondering that for a while." Great, thanks for nothing, smartass.