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Amazon Wants Alexa To Read Blog Posts and Broadcast Church Sermons (cnet.com)
Amazon's Alexa Skills Blueprints are free online templates that let you create custom Alexa tricks without needing to code. Now, the online retailer is giving those blueprints some new tricks of their own. From a report: Announced in a blog post Wednesday morning, the newest Skill Blueprints are "built specifically for content creators, bloggers, and organizations so they can reach anyone with an Alexa-enabled device." Skills created with any of Amazon's blueprints can now be submitted to Amazon for certification and publication in the Alexa app's Skills Store in the US. "Keep your skill personal to Alexa-enabled devices associated with your Amazon account, share it with friends and family, or publish it so anyone can discover, use and review your skill," Amazon says. That open approach might help bolster the number of Alexa skills available in the Alexa app.
"Sorry, Dave, I cannot open heaven's gate bay doors."
Table-ized A.I.
"oh Yes. Baby. you are getting me so hot. Baby. Yes. Just like that."
The word of God through the mouth of the Beast.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
n/t
Well not all Churches are so focused on Satan. There are a number of moderate churches out there. Like it or not America is Amazons biggest customer base, and is also a very religious country.
I myself wouldn't want Alexa to read the sermon, but make it cheap and easy for the local churches to record them onto Amazon, and have Alexa rebroadcast it on demand, I think would be a good use of the technology.
From listening to some of the religious people (poor) arguments about atheism. It makes me worry, that the only thing stopping some religion people from being mass murders is the fact they have religion. So having Alexa, broadcast these sermons, to keep such people morals aligned, it probably a net positive.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
At first I read this to mean "read blog posts and then broadcast church sermons". I want to see what kind of sermons an AI comes up with after reading random blog posts.
An artificial intelligence, built from science and technology, sharing messages of religion?
It makes me worry, that the only thing stopping some religion people from being mass murders is the fact they have religion.
Now only if religion could stop their priests and ministers from abusing their congregations' children . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
> Amazon AI plug-in for WordPress and provide the blueprint with an RSS feed.
Everything I see on this is literally just using RSS to do the equivalent of a podcast to the Alexa device, then later converting this on Alexa's servers via text-to-speech.
They could literally just do podcast support and achieve not only the same goals, but START OUT with hundreds of thousands of "broadcasts". Wordpress also comes RSS enabled by default.
This plugin I cannot see what it does at all except make the process more complicated and to get in their own ways. Maybe they just want to "certify" those RSS feeds and only allow those they allow. This is just a moronic gated version of podcasting.
That is more of a case of Administration then Religion.
For nearly all religions their key marketing point is that they are more moral, then the other religion.
This fact that "we are better then that", in essence puts priests and ministers into high-power jobs. Power, Status with a high community standing, gives them the ability to often get away with it, without much outrage. And when it comes down to who we should believe a Priest or a troubled teenager, the victim would be punished by the community.
Now this type of stuff would happen in every religion, schools, youth services...
Now what the Administration mistake that has been happening, was the fact they wouldn't fire, prosecute, or put them in a spot where they are no longer empowered to perform such acts, when suspicions arise. Mostly because the Administration wasn't concerned about the religion or the people, but the PR Press for the Organization. So they tried to shove the sins from their members under the table, hoping they would just stop.
This actually creates a feedback loop, because now they know they can get away with it, and do it again.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Can you imagine an entire 2 hour sermon being read in one of those annoying text to speech voices?
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Well not all Churches are so focused on Satan. There are a number of moderate churches out there. Like it or not America is Amazons biggest customer base, and is also a very religious country.
I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We focus on God blessing / rewarding people for doing good instead of punishing them for doing bad. Very rarely is Satan the main topic. Also of note, we don't have a paid / professionally trained clergy. Most talks during our Sacrament Meeting are from lay members instead of clergy. Our local Sacrament Meetings are not recorded nor broadcast. Stake and regional conferences are broadcast real time to chapels in the area, but not recorded or put online. Our biannual General Conference is recorded, translated, broadcast, and posted online (both video and transcripts), and published in the Church's monthly magazine (also available online). All formats (except the printed magazine) are freely available.
I myself wouldn't want Alexa to read the sermon, but make it cheap and easy for the local churches to record them onto Amazon, and have Alexa rebroadcast it on demand, I think would be a good use of the technology.
I don't trust having Alexa in my home because microphone is always listening, etc, but I agree with your post up to this point. If I wanted to revisit a sermon, I would like to be able to ask Alexa to rebroadcast Elder Ballard's talk from the April 2015 General Conference (change to meet your own preferences); even better would be ask Alexa for a list of discourses on a certain topic. This would be a great benefit to people who want it without consequences for those who don't use it.
From listening to some of the religious people (poor) arguments about atheism. It makes me worry, that the only thing stopping some religion people from being mass murders is the fact they have religion. So having Alexa, broadcast these sermons, to keep such people morals aligned, it probably a net positive.
Straw man is a straw man.
Can you imagine an entire 2 hour sermon being read in one of those annoying text to speech voices?
Two hour sermon? How does the priest keep people's attention that long? My Sacrament Meeting lasts 1 hour and that includes hymns, prayers, the Sacrament, and 2 or 3 talks. I don't think I've heard a sermon last more than 30 minutes.
I honestly can't recall for certain, since that was such a long time ago and much of my former religious life is a big blur; but with some of the services I had to sit though, it seemed like the preacher was going on for hours on end. Then again, that could just be due to the Theory of Kid Time Relativity, where the younger you are; the slower time appears to move.
How about imagining instead someone suddenly speaking out in tongues, and Alexa then "interpreting" the so called message. That has a lot of great church trolling potential...
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The events are predictable even this far in advance. Churches will use it. Most will use it without problem. The mega-churches will especially like it, as their focus is on sheer member count (and donor pool) rather than an active relationship with each individual member. All will be well - because most church sermons are safe, bland lectures about doing good and charity. No problem.
Then, somewhere, a preacher will use it to broadcast a sermon of more difficult content. Most likely, though not certain to be, intensely anti-gay. A bit more than just the 'our church opposes gay marriage' type, and veering into conspiracy theories about the gay conspiracy to corrupt children, or something like that. Or it may be some really outdated sermon regarding woman, condemning educated woman as a danger to the family and asking why modern husbands are afraid to beat a wife who will not submit to their rightful authority. I can't say what the sermon will be, only that eventually, something will be said for which Amazon will face a backlash. There will be public pressure for them to expel this user - which they will, because they will certainly have an acceptable use policy clause for this type of situation.
If the sermon were really, really super-offensive - a call for open genocide, for example - that'd be the end of it. But this sermon is merely really offensive - enough to get kicked off, but not so bad as to be indefensible. So people will soon defend it: Just as the demands to kick the offending preacher off are silenced, so new cries will go up accusing Amazon of censorship, or being anti-Christian, and of trying to control the country with a secret political agenda. Even a few actual politicians will join the campaign against them, calling for investigations and regulations. Inevitably, someone will sue. The majority of the sermon that started it all will be quickly forgotten as the outrage grows.
And somewhere, an Amazon executive will wonder why they ever thought it a good idea in the first place, and vow never again to touch religion or politics.
I honestly can't recall for certain, since that was such a long time ago and much of my former religious life is a big blur; but with some of the services I had to sit though, it seemed like the preacher was going on for hours on end. Then again, that could just be due to the Theory of Kid Time Relativity, where the younger you are; the slower time appears to move.
How about imagining instead someone suddenly speaking out in tongues, and Alexa then "interpreting" the so called message. That has a lot of great church trolling potential...
LOL! I must say that gibberish sounds are outside of my religious background (if someone's going to speak in tongues, there's got to be someone to interpret or else its nonsensical chaos according to the Apostle Paul). Alexa would have to be pretty smart to detect which language is spoken in just a few words (think the Latin-based tongues).
Ministration, then religion.
I don't understand it, I'm just trying to help them with their English when suddenly I get this pounding headache...
Alexa, preach a sermon about the evils of relying on Amazon for all your daily needs.