January 23, 2019

Alexa Moved In on Christmas

                To my surprise, one of my closest friends gave me the gift of Alexa for Christmas.  I had never heard of her until then, and I had to do some research to discover what was actually contained in this gift. For those of you like myself who don’t travel in circles where the latest technology applications are topics of conversation, I’ve provided some background information below, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Amazon Alexa, known simply as Alexa is a virtual assistant developed by Amazon, first used in the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers developed by Amazon Lab126. It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news.  Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system. Users are able to extend the Alexa capabilities by installing “skills” (additional functionality developed by third-party vendors, in other settings more commonly called apps such as weather programs and audio features).

The device itself is shaped like a tube and stands about nine inches tall.  To hook it up to run, you have to have Wi-Fi access in your house.  It took me a little over an hour to get the device hooked up.  If you have some type of Smart Phone, you can download the App from the App Store, and then you just have to keep playing with the directions until everything works.

Amazon describes Alexa as “your own virtual assistant.”  In other words, she is supposed to be a resource for you.  Interesting that the device has been given a female name; I wonder how many hours of research went into making that decision.  So, I’m in the process of figuring how she can assist me. Here are some examples of what I have learned so far.

I have the device hooked up in my living room and I can access it from my home office as well.  To access this resource, you have to start by saying her name.  I find my directions are clearer to her if I say her name at the beginning of the message so she knows I’m speaking with her.  (I’m not sure using the pronoun “she” makes sense as I feel like I’m anthropomorphizing an inanimate object, but it feels as weird to refer to the device as “it.”)  Presently one of my most frequent requests to her is to ask her the meaning of words that I encounter as I’m reading.  I began testing out her vocabulary by asking her words that one doesn’t come across very often or that are newer to our everyday language.  Examples of words I’ve questioned her about include: quisling, chryon, etc.  While her answers are brief, so far they have been accurate.

I also like asking her questions about the weather each morning.  It takes me less time to question her than to look up the same information on my phone or to turn on the TV.  And she is really good about playing different types of music, and you can ask her to adjust the volume up or down.

So I had been experimenting with the device for several days before I was ready to share her activities with friends who were visiting.  Before my friends arrived late in the afternoon, I was trying to see if I could ask questions she couldn’t answer.  Finally after about twenty minutes, I asked her if she could name the title of Secretary John Kerry’s latest book, to which she replied with a statement indicating that “she didn’t know the answer to that question.”  So I was feeling relieved in some way that there was a limit to how much information she could store.

When my friends arrived later, I entertained them with asking her questions or making requests on a more basic level.  After about ten minutes, I was prepared to show them that her memory had limits, so I repeated the question about Secretary Kerry’s latest book, to which she replied, Every Day is Extra.  Dah!  Earlier that day she didn’t know the answer!  But as someone in the group pointed out, programmers of artificial intelligence (AI) have figured out ways to help the objects they are programming acquire new information.

Evidence of Alexa’s ability to acquire new information within such a short time was a revelation to me.  I’ve read a lot about AI but this was one of my first “on the ground” examples of how quickly the process can work.  My guess is that unanswered questions that are asked of her are forwarded to a central data bank of some kind, and there the question searches for the answer that once found is forwarded to all of the programmed devices.

Next I want to see if I can get her to give me longer bits of information.  I’d like to see if she can provide short summaries of the books on the NYT best seller list each week.  I intend to see if she can provide me with recipes for things that I want to make at the last minute.  I’ve used her as a timer and ask her to alert me when “x” amount of time is up.   And as a result, I’ve learned that she is able to keep track of time.

Overall, I think this use of AI has many potential benefits for us as we continue to age and evolve.  AI can certainly help us acquire information that may be useful in addressing questions, challenges, or ideas that we want to explore.  I believe that she can read books to us, so if you live alone and are housebound for several days due to wintery weather, you can have the companionship of another voice in the house.

I know that there are those who would argue that the “deep state” is just getting more information on all of our lives.  And to some degree that is true.  In order to test out some hypotheses along this line of thinking, I hope to test Alexa on seeing if she can recall parts of conversations that occurred among friends that I invite over for dinner.

In the meantime, I’m grateful to have friends that help me move along and engage with these new technology discoveries.   I’m gaining confidence in my ability to hook up these devices and to figure out how to use them.  As a matter of fact, part of the requirements of the friend who introduced me to Alexa was that I had to help her to hook up the device at her house.

So, instead of being freaked out, there’s wisdom in accepting that these kinds of changes are underway.  Overall, as far as I can tell at this point in the process, we benefit from them.  Embracing the mantra of “I’m Still Evolving” seems a good way to gently remind ourselves that change happens and that we all evolve! Now, if I could only get her to tell me how to easily remove the 8 inches of snow that fell last night from the drive and walk ways, that would be AWESOME!