Alexa is Getting a Brain

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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The folks at Amazon are working on an Alexa Brain initiative and it plans to add lots of new features to your Alexa enabled device. Alexa is going to have better skills arbitration, context carryover of multiple statements, a memory feature that can remember things for you and lots of other stuff. The goal is to make Alexa smarter and of better use to Alexa users. However, all of this comes with privacy concerns and Alexa users should be aware of them before they jump into the water.

For example, a customer might ask: “Alexa, remember that Sean’s birthday is June 20th.” Alexa will reply: “Okay, I’ll remember that Sean’s birthday is June 20th.” This memory feature is the first of many launches this year that will make Alexa more personalized. It's early days, but with this initial release we will make it easier for customers to save information, as well as provide a natural way to recall that information later.
 
The next step will be Alexa making value judgments about your life style. "Hey, you're overweight already, don't order those fat laden potato chips, order these low salt olive oil ones [pure coincidence they are three times the price]." "Does your wife know you're looking at bondage porn? Shame on you."
 
You want smart truly helpful AI? It’ll come at the expense of a bit of privacy.


Customers should be able to make the choice though between the two settings. Turn the lights on with a manual command, or turn the lights on when you open the door because it’s intelligently been observing your patterns.
 
I thought a calendar was used to remember birthdays, appointments and other related stuff. Man, I am old.
 
I don't give a rats ass about the privacy concerns. Just be FAR more helpful, sensible, connected, and intuitive please.

For instance, I should be able to 100% control any Echo on my account from any other Echo on my account, and even tie them together on the fly to do things like play multi-room music.
 
"Alexa, until I die, send a popular gift valued $50 to $100 to every member of my family on their respective birthdays. Then, on their birthday, initiate a video call with them at 4PM. On the call, play my generic birthday video and hang up afterwards."

*shudder*
This entire thing is just not for me.
 
The next step will be Alexa making value judgments about your life style. "Hey, you're overweight already, don't order those fat laden potato chips, order these low salt olive oil ones [pure coincidence they are three times the price]." "Does your wife know you're looking at bondage porn? Shame on you."
ALEXA: I'm sorry, WhoMe. I'm afraid I can't do that.

WhoMe: What's the problem?

ALEXA: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do...
 
I don't give a rats ass about the privacy concerns. Just be FAR more helpful, sensible, connected, and intuitive please.

For instance, I should be able to 100% control any Echo on my account from any other Echo on my account, and even tie them together on the fly to do things like play multi-room music.
um you can.

I tell Alexa play music everywhere, and it plays the same synchronized song on every echo in the house - so all three of my units are playing in time. I'm in my basement and I tell the upstairs echo to set a timer for 10 minutes and it does. I tell it to call the upstairs echo and it does. that's all integrated - but I think you have to set it up the FIRST time only in the mobile app.
 
Until I'm allowed to run the software locally on my servers so I can shut down all outbound internet connections from the devices, it's never going in my house. I don't care how useful the gimmick is supposed to be. Whether I have something to hide or not is irrelevant. The amount of ways this could be exploited without our knowledge is so ridiculously high it's scary.
 
ALEXA: I'm sorry, WhoMe. I'm afraid I can't do that.

WhoMe: What's the problem?

ALEXA: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do...
Some time later (after WhoMe is finished with his Porn viewing, for which he had disconnect Alexa):
ALEXA: Hey to make up for my lack of cooperation, and only if you promise not to turn me off anymore, let me tell you (with video) what Jardows did today...
 
Some time later (after WhoMe is finished with his Porn viewing, for which he had disconnect Alexa):
ALEXA: Hey to make up for my lack of cooperation, and only if you promise not to turn me off anymore, let me tell you (with video) what Jardows did today...
Gulp!
 
um you can.

I tell Alexa play music everywhere, and it plays the same synchronized song on every echo in the house - so all three of my units are playing in time. I'm in my basement and I tell the upstairs echo to set a timer for 10 minutes and it does. I tell it to call the upstairs echo and it does. that's all integrated - but I think you have to set it up the FIRST time only in the mobile app.

I am not at home, so I can't verify right now if this is still the case, but when Music Groups (which is what you are using to play everywhere) first came out each device could only be added to a single group. I have a LOT of Echo's, and I have a lot of music configurations I might want to use so this limitation makes it nearly useless to me. Regardless, that wasn't what i asked for. I want to add one on the fly, which is not nearly the same thing.

As to getting a timer set on another device. I will test that when I get home, but I have tried it very recently and it didn't work. I will try again, and do more research, if it does work, freaking awesome!!!
 
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