To say that folks have misgivings about AI is probably an understatement. From long-term fears over what the technology might do as it acquires more power and more capability, to the immediate concerns of those in creative roles who see themselves as unpaid trainers of AI models (and their first professional victims), there is no shortage of legitimate criticisms. And as someone who writes words for a living, I’m painfully and frighteningly aware that AI represents a clear and present danger to my income.
But if my smart speakers can finally turn into something more useful than a voice-activated egg timer — as Amazon has promised with its new AI-driven Alexa+ — I consider that a silver lining to the oncoming AI apocalypse, not something to be avoided.
From gimmick to magic
Like a lot of you, I was less than blown away by Siri when Apple debuted its voice assistant on the iPhone 4S. There was a novelty to it, for sure, and I know some folks who, to this day get genuine utility from being able to create reminders, respond to text messages, and place calls with their voice. But as someone who seldom drives (and who would rather die than be overheard barking commands into their phone in public), Siri felt like a gimmick.
When Amazon introduced its first Echo smart speaker, however, I was immediately taken in. The quality of Alexa’s simulated voice, the variety of things I could ask, the fact that it could tie into a bunch of smart home devices that I didn’t yet own (but someday surely would) … it felt magical in the way that only really clever technology can be.
Google Assistant — via the first-gen Google Home speaker — had its own charms, especially if you were a very googly person.
Not keeping up
And yet, as the years passed, and I added more of these devices to our home — including Sonos smart speakers that could run either Alexa or Google Assistant — I became increasingly aware of their shortcomings.
The magic of controlling my lights or thermostat with my voice eventually stopped feeling so magical after the hundredth time, while simultaneously, my frustration grew as these voice assistants couldn’t keep pace with my desire for more and better responses.
It’s handy, when watching a movie, to ask, “Hey Google, how old is Paul Rudd?” and get instant access to that information “Paul Rudd is 55 years old.” But throwing in even a tiny bit of extra complexity can bring these voice assistants to their knees: “Hey Google, how old was Paul Rudd when he was in This Is 40?” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Or worse, as Alexa demonstrated: “From thecinemaholic.com, how the 26-year old Paul Rudd pulled off a seemingly innocent and novice 18-year-old Josh is beyond my comprehension.” That’s a reference to Rudd’s 1995 turn as Josh in Clueless, by the way.
An actually intelligent assistant
Meanwhile, ChatGPT barely broke a sweat during the two seconds it took to generate this reply, “Paul Rudd was born on April 6, 1969, and This Is 40 was released in December 2012. That means he was 43 years old when the movie came out, but he was likely 41 or 42 during filming, depending on the exact shooting schedule.”
Oh and just as an added flex, if I follow that up with related questions, like “Who played his wife in that movie?” and, “how old was she when she played that role?” I think you already know how that went.
Needless to say, these are among the most mundane things you could ask an assistant (dear Paul, I’m not calling you mundane; you are awesome), but they’re already orders of magnitude more complicated than any of our current smart speakers can handle and that feels wrong. How can a voice assistant ever truly assist you, if it doesn’t understand you?
Does greater risk to our privacy come with greater AI capabilities? Possibly. OK, probably. But anyone who already has one of these devices in their home has already (perhaps naively) accepted that risk. If you fear that your smart speakers are eavesdropping on every conversation and then whispering those details in Jeff Bezos’ digital ears, you may be right — but then why do you have these devices in the first place?
For me, and I’m fairly certain for my family members, the privacy risk/reward tradeoff with so-called “smart” technology is one I’m willing to make — with one major caveat: the reward needs to feel like a reward. If Alexa+ can bring back the magic, it will once again feel like a tradeoff worth making.
Not all of Digital Trends agrees. Read why senior editor John Higgins is kicking Alexa out of his home.
