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posted by on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the find-me-some-coconuts-to-buy-and-play-horsey-with dept.

I would love to have a house/AI to keep me organized: to tell me when an important date is coming/arrived; remind me of things i have to do (like the laundry) or of really important things like "you have a family.... go pay attention to them".

But at what cost will that come.

Amazon's Alexa AI (as well as all the other personal assistants being developed) is, seemingly, probably moving from a speaker to the room/house you are standing in. This will eventually help you in life, but will also feed the 'machine' of the corporation developing it.

What would it take to create an open source AI to help me/you with daily life? Would you like to have it come from an RMS point of view, or would a less 'commercial', almost open source alternative be acceptable?

Could you really be accepting of something that coordinates your life and helps you out with occasional advertisements and up-stream collection of 'some' data?

From the referenced article:

While some predict mass unemployment or all-out war between humans and artificial intelligence, others foresee a less bleak future. Professor Manuela Veloso, head of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University, envisions a future in which humans and intelligent systems are inseparable, bound together in a continual exchange of information and goals that she calls "symbiotic autonomy." In Veloso's future, it will be hard to distinguish human agency from automated assistance — but neither people nor software will be much use without the other.

[Ed: TFA also includes an interview with Professor Veloso, which provides more detail and discussion]


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:38AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:38AM (#427431) Journal

    I would love to have a house/AI to keep me organized: to tell me when an important date is coming/arrived; remind me of things i have to do (like the laundry) or of really important things like "you have a family.... go pay attention to them".

    You want a nanny AI?

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  • (Score: 2) by chromas on Wednesday November 16 2016, @11:43AM

    by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 16 2016, @11:43AM (#427472) Journal

    Or a PDA,

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday November 16 2016, @02:06PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 16 2016, @02:06PM (#427506)

    He wants a speech interface to emacs org mode, I think.

    Not being illiterate and being able to read and type faster than I can speak, I prefer org mode.

    I mostly use it for GTD type workflow, whens the next electric bill due, oh, Dec 5, thank you org mode. When is the next time to replace the furnace air filter? oh May 12th 2017, thank you org mode. A date aware sort with some disciplined tagging, that's about it.

    One huge problem alexa has is its for single NEETS. At a very low level at a very fundamental part of its design it doesn't understand that more than one person with an amazon account lives in my house or more than one person would use it. She also doesn't understand the concept of a session she is very stateless mode command and response.

    Probably blows the minds of some privacy advocates but I have an Alexa and don't give a F that its listening. I'm cool with having a spy in the house. I'm usually not planning armed revolution verbally, so I am all good there. I mostly use it to talk to a local java program that emulates a "hue light bulb interface" that actually talks to my extensive misterhouse install that I've had for about 15 years now. I like Alexas voice and she listens pretty well. So... Alexa thinks she's talking to a closed siloed collection of truly weirdly named corporate lightbulbs, but she's actually talking to my open source misterhouse via a rather small interoperation java program that probably violates the DMCA. My wife refuses to speak to her and I have a running joke of calling Alexa my girlfriend or my other wife (my wife is used to my weird sense of humor after a couple decades together). My kids love Alexa in a non-display speech operated ipad like way. Since I have Prime they essentially have a bottomless free voice operated jukebox. My son thinks her jokes are hilarious so make your own judgments there about what age group she is trying to appeal to. Why did the chicken cross the road type humor, not degenerate sarah silverman type humor. She's very strict and my daughter unbelievably still can't speak perfect Alexa-protocol after months of daily use which kind of surprises me. You have to say certain exact precise phrases, not just "close enough". Yes Alexa doesn't understand TV or music at all, and if I watch a video podcast some sort of TWIT network thing on TV where they talk about her, alexa does go crazy when she hears her name. So... I guess no more TV or pr0n involving women named Alexa, at least not in her hearing.

    I got it in the famous sale where half price alexa is like twice the price of a nice bluetooth speaker. She's not expensive.

    I have no idea, none, how amazon can monetize alexa, at least that isn't shady as heck.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Wednesday November 16 2016, @03:35PM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @03:35PM (#427543)

      Probably blows the minds of some privacy advocates but I have an Alexa and don't give a F that its listening.

      You use emacs. Nothing you say would surprise me at this point. :)

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