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Amazon lays off Alexa employees as 2010s voice-assistant boom gives way to AI (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (17 children)

Damn voice assistants are going to be our memory of the 2010s like car phones were to the 80s.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (16 children)

Pretty much everyone I know uses then daily.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Me: Play Whitehorse the band
Google Assistant: Playing Whitehorse the song by some other guy
Me: No, play Whitehorse the Canadian band
Google Assistant: Playing Whitehorse the album by a third guy
Me: Play Achilles Desire
Google Asistant: Playing Whitehorse

Me: Play Tu vuò fà l'americano on Spotify
Google Assistant: !?!?!?!?

Me: Play Laisse tomber les filles
Google Assistant: !?!?!?

Me: Play Les Cowboys Fringants on Spotify
Google Assistant: !?
Me: Play Les Cowboys F R I N G A N T S
Google Assistant: Playing Les Cowboys Fringants

I only ever use those junky voice assistants when driving, and they are useless half the time

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Me: Turn on the kitchen

Alexa: I'm sorry, what device?

Me: KITCHEEEEEEN

It used to work flawlessly for every room in my house, and then a few months ago it just started doing that stupid "what device?" shit.

Not only are voice assistants not improving, they're actively getting worse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

70% of the time, finding my phone and doing it myself would have been faster than arguing with a dumb speaker. I find them really good for

setting timers
playing generic music
pausing other devices that are playing
simple questions like current temperature or forecast

When I don't already have my phone in hand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

You put your phone down?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

👌👍

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