Nobody cares about "AI" (Chatbot: I disagree.)

[Noodles]

My phone has an alarm clock on it. I can name them fancy things like "Get Milk", "Take Meds", "Go.home from work".

Granted, a phone costs more than $20.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Technically correct, the best kind of correct.

 

[Free]

They updated Alexa. New voices, "smarter" sounding replies.

Its different. Its a bit annoying. I told it to stop being so sassy earlier after asking for a timer. It got snippy after telling it it sounded like a toddler.

I noticed last night that my Fire tablet (I use one as a bedside clock/alarm/music/info gadget) has Alexa's cutesy, "more human" voice bubbling from it when I asked it about the weather. This despite my telling it NO whenever it's wanted to update itself. Even more galling is along with the voice (which I find childish in tone), it's showing off Alexa's newer "A.I." aspects quite readily: When I asked why its voice had been updated, it told me it had the same voice it always had.

It lied to me! When I challenged it, it claimed to be "jokingly telling a fib," and blah blahed on for a bit as to why Alexa is so much better now. At fucking with me, for sure. I may have to pull my old $20 alarm clock out of storage if the bullshit continues.

By the way, months back I asked my Fire TV box to demo the voice, and it told me it couldn't update the device, as it was too old. Which I took as a good sign. However, I just asked it again and it told me it already has the new voice. Which it most certainly does not.

Is Amazon's new business model focused on gaslighting its customers?

 

[Isabeau]

Look up Alexa lies reddit.

 

[Free]

Look up Alexa lies reddit.

 

[Noodles]

I noticed last night that my Fire tablet (I use one as a bedside clock/alarm/music/info gadget) has Alexa's cutesy, "more human" voice bubbling from it when I asked it about the weather. This despite my telling it NO whenever it's wanted to update itself. Even more galling is along with the voice (which I find childish in tone), it's showing off Alexa's newer "A.I." aspects quite readily: When I asked why its voice had been updated, it told me it had the same voice it always had.

It lied to me! When I challenged it, it claimed to be "jokingly telling a fib," and blah blahed on for a bit as to why Alexa is so much better now. At fucking with me, for sure. I may have to pull my old $20 alarm clock out of storage if the bullshit continues.

By the way, months back I asked my Fire TV box to demo the voice, and it told me it couldn't update the device, as it was too old. Which I took as a good sign. However, I just asked it again and it told me it already has the new voice. Which it most certainly does not.

Is Amazon's new business model focused on gaslighting its customers?

Yeah it's annoyingly weird. It seems better about actually hearing when we set timers, and remembering them, the old backend seemed to randomly forget timers.

But like, suddenly it basically can't voice control the Roku TV at all, which literally amounts to "Alexa, pause Roku" and "Alexa Resume". I even tried going through the app again to group them and make sure they had proper matching names.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Barnsley rebranded UK’s first ‘tech town’ as US giants join AI push

In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan “the place of possibilities”. Now it is trying a different image: Britain’s first “tech town”.

The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life” in the UK.


In the latest move in Labour’s drive to inject AI into Britain’s bloodstream, the government has announced four US tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Adobe – have agreed to help as the council pushes to apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses in Barnsley, an area of South Yorkshire which has struggled with unemployment and deprivation since the coal pits closed.