Running AI is so expensive that Amazon will probably charge you to use Alexa in future, says outgoing exec::In an interview with Bloomberg, Dave Limp said that he “absolutely” believes that Amazon will soon start charging a subscription fee for Alexa
We need to move AI from the cloud to our own hardware running in our homes. Free, open source, privacy focused hardware. It’ll eventually be very affordable.
God I wish, I would just love local voice control to turn my lights and such on and off… but noooooooooooo
I do wonder how much of those voice assistants could run on-device. Most of what I use Bixby for (I know. I KNOW.) is setting timers. I think simple things like that can run entirely on the phone. It’s got a shocking amount of processing in it.
While you may have points against Apple and how effective Siri may be, with this latest version kind of products, even the watch has enough processing power to do voice processing on device. No ads. No cloud services
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AI is being touted as the solution to everything these days. It’s really not, and we are going to find that out the hard way.
If IBM actually manages to convert COBOL into Java like they’re advertising, they’ll end up killing their own cash cow
So much still runs on COBOL
So they get massive amounts of free data for Machine Learning, but want to charge users for supplying it?
I wake my echo and then grind coffee beans.
Alexa is more like a telemarketer disguised as an assistant. Every interaction is followed by a “by the way . Its a shit experience so I stopped using mine.
Alexa was designed explicitly for that purpose. They lose money on every Echo sold, the whole idea was they would make money selling you stuff. Turns out people would rather use their Echo to check the weather, get recipes, etc. rather than voice shop.
I just can’t see a use case for voice shopping. There are almost zero instances where I want to buy something without having a visual of that thing in front of me at time of purchase.
I could possibly see something like “buy another stick of deodorant”, but even then I want to see if there are deals or some other options and would want to check the price at a minimum.
Seems like yet another MBA idea.
Ha, I use mine almost exclusively as a light switch. I don’t have to get out of bed to turn off my lights or turn on my fan. I’m sure they’re losing a bunch of money on me
It’s a great lightswitch. Also, thermostat adjustor (my husband is very particular and changes it about a dozen times a day).
Setting all my Alexa’s to UK English got rid of all marketing “by the ways.” I still regret going with the Alexa ecosystem but at least for now there is a workaround for the most rage inducing part of it.
So they expect that people pay for being spied upon and seriously data mined?
We have a Google mini. They listen to my six year old request the song Poopy Bum Bum all day. The ads get interesting.
I already don’t use it, you don’t have to sell me on it.
Alexa isn’t nearly good enough to pay for. I basically use it for timers, math, weather, and conversions.
Yep, used to be much better. There was SO much potential with it too. I wish there was a Smart Speaker with integration into ChatGPT. Id love to stand in the shower and ask it shit
You can do this with a Siri shortcut.
It still falls short because LLMs aren’t smart, they’re just approximately not wrong most of the time. I thought it would be a lot cooler than it actually is.
Building your own dystopia I see…
Not following
…charge me to use Alexa?
I already avoid it like the plague.
I have doubts alexa is using AI, seen how dumb it is, but well
From the article:
Amazon has bet big on AI, with the company unveiling a new, AI-powered version of Alexa alongside updated versions of its Echo Frames and Carrera smart glasses last week.
Good luck, I guess? Got the first Google home, at first it was great, I was asking it tons of questions. Then the questions stopped, used it for turning on the lights and other automations. Then I installed Home Assistant and the only command Google Home got was to set a timer to know when to pull things out of the oven. Eventually I stopped doing that.
At the moment all Google/Nest Homes have their mic cut off, I only use them to stream music in my house from my NAS via Plex. So yeah…
Ok. I’ll be the weirdo. If it’s actually useful, I would pay for it.
Not if it’s just the parlor trick that it currently is.
This is the killer for all this shit right now as far as I’m concerned. All of it lives squarely in “huh…neat” territory. I have yet to see anything I felt was truly necessary. Until that happens, paying is a non starter for me.
I use Alexa as a way to use an old speaker system. I wouldn’t pay to use any “smart” speaker systems. They are pretty dumb and I’ve already paid once
Has Amazon considered making a stationary AI?
All I want alexa to do is turn my lights on and off, set timers, and show me my own pictures. And it can BARELY do that without fucking it up. Everyone I know wants the same, they expect nothing more from it. “AI” features of Alexa aren’t t needed or wanted by anyone I’ve talked to about it.
They thought people would be like “Alexa, but me a ton of shit on Amazon” but people just use it for timers and the weather
Yeah, can you imagine trusting that thing to buy stuff for you? Bit scary, actually.
