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Voice Assistants Will Be Difficult To Fire (wired.com)
mirandakatz writes: As voice assistants crop up left and right, consumers are facing a decision: Are you an Alexa? A Google Assistant? A Siri? Choose wisely -- because once you pick one voice assistant, it'll be difficult to switch. As Scott Rosenberg writes at Backchannel, "If I want to switch assistants down the line, sure, I can just go out and buy another device. But that investment of time and personal data isn't so easy to replace... Right now, all these assistants behave like selfish employees who think they can protect their jobs by holding vital expertise or passwords close to their chests. Eventually , the data that runs the voice assistant business is going to have to be standardized."
They are totally useless in a multilingual setting any way. Even in a monolingual setting, they're not exactly that useful... but at least they can send texts for you.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The companies are not going to be at all accepting of a standard. The only real edge they will have over each other is what services and accounts they are tied too. The assistants are all going to have the same features. If you use Google accounts and services, you'll stick with Google. What's going to happen is the consumer will get screwed and if they want to use Google for services, Amazon for retail and Apple for entertainment they will have to buy three different devices.
Sent from my TARDIS
Dude, you're using a proprietary voice assistant. Of course its primary purpose is to lock you in. That's the purpose of all proprietary communications tools. This is a whole area of software where, from the user's point of view, it is utterly insane and self-destructive to be using proprietary software.
If you want/need to run proprietary software, stick to games. For anything important, it doesn't make sense to use any software that treats you like an adversary.
You aren't your enemy, so you shouldn't be paying to have your computer act as though you are.
(2017 and the above opinion is probably still considered controversial. Everyone knows it's true but some people feel compelled to pretend that common sense is too "inconvenient.")
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
If you can't fire them
Don't hire them
Seriously, go outside and go for a walk or something that actually makes you happier.
We went from stores full of stuff being too much of a hassle to drive to and needed things delivered to our doorstep. now it is too much of a chore to pull up a browser to order crap, so we get voice assistants to do it for us. How effing lazy are people? How hollow are their lives?
go ride a bike, walk in the woods, talk with a human, or almost anything else is better for you than holing up with Alexa or Siri to try and fill your void of an existence.
Yeah, it's called walking. It's been working ever since human being have existed. It has great health benefits, and it's free.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Isn't it just a matter of time before somebody loses a civil lawsuit or goes to jail based mostly on "assistant" recordings?
Eventually they will manufacture new markets for those based on always-recording models. Helping old people, kids, some other "safety" justification and people just get used to the idea that it's always recording and transcribing everything.
Before too long people will start suing Amazon/Google for *not* calling the cops, alerting the authorities, etc, when something bad happens in a monitored environment.
So these devices will end up with some kind of 911-like compliance requirement and if you have an argument with a housemate you wind up having the cops show up.
I really don't get why anyone has one of these things. It's literally a Black Mirror episode.