Voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Bixby are good at playing music, answering simple questions, viewing digital photos, setting timers and alarms, and turning smart switches on and off. But smartphones can do all these things too, so voice assistants will have to evolve to survive. Voice commerce (using voice commands to make purchases) could be the next step for voice assistants. Nielsen predicts that by 2025, voice commerce will account for 2% of all retail purchases. In the meantime, big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Meta and several Elon companies could be the next step for voice assistants. All mask companies are focused on how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance their products. But Amazon's strategy is to use AI to turn Alexa into a home hub for appliances, a computer for everyday use, and a butler who can run her master's daily tasks.
Alexa is built into more than 300 million devices sold by Amazon and others. Despite this massive adoption, some technology writers say Alexa is the company's biggest failure. Vishal Sharma, vice president of Alexa's artificial intelligence organization, disputes this claim. “We've never had a failure. If you look at our usage statistics or the number of connected devices, we're seeing growth.”According to Amazon, Alexa interactions grew by more than 30% globally last year. 50% of users made a purchase using Alexa.
Alexa has never failed.Usage and number of connected devices are increasing
Vishal Sharma, Amazon Vice President and Head of Alexa Artificial Intelligence
El Paz attended Amazon's press conference, where Sharma said the company will double down on its use of artificial intelligence to turn Alexa into the hub of the home. “Mobile phones have driven most of the industry's innovation, including smaller cameras, new sensors, and batteries,” said Dave Limp, vice president of devices and services at Amazon. Families, where they spend time, have been ignored.”
“Homes are incredibly handcrafted. Industry is automating other areas, but not in the home. We have developed a vision for housing that serves residents by: [through learning routines]. This is what we call ambient intelligence,” Limp said.
Amazon's Smart Home Lab for testing home appliance integration with Alexa. May 2023.Elpas
Vishal Sharma says automation using voice commands is not mature because of the complex task of differentiating voices and filtering out extraneous noise to be able to generate reliable responses. It states that. When your voice assistant asks you to turn on a light, you need to turn on the correct light. Another key to him is learning the routine. The assistant recognizes that repeated sequences of actions are habitual patterns, and he needs to group them under one command.
Mobile phones have driven most of the industry's innovations. However, our homes, where we spend most of our time, have been neglected.
Dave Limp, Vice President of Amazon Devices and Services
Marja Koopmans, head of Amazon's Smart Home Lab in Seattle, Washington, demonstrates how it works. When she said, “Alexa, I'm leaving,” the assistant locked the door and turned off all lights and devices except those that were programmed to run when no one was present, such as the vacuum cleaner. When it's time to wake up in the morning, Alexa turns on the lights, provides the weather forecast, reads the day's schedule, and turns on the shower and coffee maker.
Koopmans says there are four main reasons to implement a smart home. Provide entertainment (music, television, games, etc.). It provides security to people (mainly the elderly and children) and assets (remote monitoring of the home). Save energy by shutting down devices that are not in use.
Vishal Sharma believes that integrating all these devices with a single assistant provides a distinct advantage over smartphones, which can perform similar functions. “You don't have to pick up your phone and click through 1,800 things or scroll around. It just works without you having to worry about the technology behind it.”
Our strategy is not to make money on the device, but on its use
Vishal Sharma
The cost of this vision varies depending on the home hub device ($100 to $275), the smart plug you use (starting at $10), and compatible appliances and devices that integrate with Alexa, such as the Fire TV Stick or Cube. “Our strategy is not to make money on the device, but to make money on the use of it,” Sharma said.
One of the biggest obstacles to a connected life is data security and privacy. Mattia Epifani, a digital forensics analyst and lecturer at the SANS Institute, told MIT Technology Review that evidence of a crime can come from a variety of places. “It could be a location. It could be a message. It could be a picture. It could be anything. In some cases, it could be the user's heart rate or the number of steps the user has taken. And these Everything is essentially stored on electronic devices.'' Leila Rouhi, Amazon's vice president of trust and privacy, said this was a priority and acknowledged the company had made a mistake. “If we make a mistake, we break the trust of our users and it is very difficult to regain it. That is why it is so important for us to think about privacy and trust, and to ensure that this “It means investing in comprehensive artificial intelligence to help you.” Louhi said Amazon's key principle is transparency, that we will never sell our users' personal information, and that we will never sell any of our users' personal information, including data, images, and voice. said that it would always give users the option to opt out of having their records recorded.
We do not sell your personal information
Leila Louhi, Vice President of Trust and Privacy, Amazon
This commitment to privacy conflicts with the constant need for devices to learn through experience. To distinguish between children's and elderly voices, women's and men's voices, or different accents of the same language, machines need to learn from sample recordings. Amazon says its machine learning processes are constantly monitored and regulated with continuous controls.
Sharma said security and privacy “are taken very seriously…We're transparent about what's going on behind the scenes, and we always provide the ability to permanently delete anything.” claims. Some Amazon devices only store information internally or do not log information at all unless you intentionally enable it. But leveraging data is key, Sharma says, and offers an analogy to explain. “When you talk to a friend, you want to remember what you say, especially if that friend is helping you with something.” But Sharma said, “We protect our privacy. “I will move heaven and earth to ensure your safety.”
AI race
Tech giants across the board are embracing AI, and the race has accelerated recently as the sector begins to show signs of recovery. Microsoft invested his $10 billion in OpenAI, which developed his ChatGPT chatbot that integrated into the Bing search engine. But this is just the first step for Microsoft. CEO Satya Nadella said the company will usher in a “new era of computing” by incorporating artificial intelligence into other products.
In March, South Korean electronics giant Samsung shocked the tech world by announcing that it was considering replacing Google with Bing as the default search engine on its devices. Google's response was to accelerate the development of new artificial intelligence systems and upgrade existing ones with AI capabilities. Similar to Amazon, Google's Magi Project aims to provide users with a personalized experience and anticipate their needs.
Google rushed to release Bard shortly after ChatGPT launched, but artificial intelligence is not new to the company. His DeepMind subsidiary has been developing AI applications in language models, self-driving cars, search engines, music playback, and computer programming for years.
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai unveils new AI tools at California headquarters. May 10, 2023. Jeff Chiu (Associated Press)
Even Elon Musk (Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX) has joined the AI race while warning about the potential dangers of the technology. According to the New York Times, Musk plans to launch a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Amazon has made its generative large-scale language models (grouped under the name Titan) available to customers through the AWS cloud computing platform, as well as generative AI applications for creating text on demand. We've also made available a cloud computing service called Bedrock to help you create and extend your . images, sounds, data.
Meta announced a new open source tool in May called ImageBind. The company says the tool can match objects in a photo with sound, 3D shapes, or movement, creating images from noise. In the future, Meta wants to give machines other senses, such as touch and smell, that are closer to human capabilities. Another open source AI tool from Meta is LLM Meta AI, which aims to compete with ChatGPT and similar applications.
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