Virtual Assistants, like Alexa, will soon dominate the world and become as ubiquitous as e-mail.
At Amazon, Alexa’s birthplace, a large multi-cultural, multi-functional team works to ensure that the ‘lady’ comes out as a human being! Who wants to talk to a computer? People want to talk to a human. If the virtual assistant can speak and act like you and I, that would be a cracker of a situation.
The inspiration for Alexa came from sci-fiction, in particular Star Trek. “The idea of a computer to which you can talk to and command it to do work, was particularly interesting,” said Miriam Daniel, Vice-President, Echo & Alexa Devices, Amazon, while speaking at the Chennai International Centre.
Of course, Alexa has a long way to go before she can become commonplace. But, for sure, she has traveled a long path. When it began three odd years ago, Alexa could do 11 things including information on weather, news and music. Today, it can respond to 50,000 commands. And it’s far more humane now. For instance, if you whisper to it because your baby is sleeping, Alexa will whisper back and not speak aloud as it used to in the past!
In its development, Alexa has had interesting India-centric challenges. First was the distinct Indian pronunciation, so dissimilar to the American way of speaking, Next, was dialect.
‘Marks’ in India meant a test score, while Alexa understood it as dents on a vehicle! She did not understand commands such as, “Can you wake me up tomorrow at 6 am to the sound of Suprabhatam?” What on earth is suprabhatam, she wondered. “Play me SRK’s songs foxed it because globally songs are associated with singers and not with actors. When it came to multiplication tables, 2 into 2 surprised her, because she had been tutored for ‘What’s 2 by 2’! A lot of Indianisation needed to be done before Alexa could be India-ready. Today, that’s in the realm of history. Amazon worked its way around putting in professionals to teach Alexa every little thing she did not know.
Alexa focuses on information (will it rain today), convenience (switch on the television), localisation (wake me up to suprabhatham), and personalisation (play me my music). “Alexa is getting smarter by the day and is meant for the masses,” says Miriam Daniel. And then Daniel adds, ‘Voice’ is the next leap of faith after ‘touch.’
On an aside, companies are working on speech technology for enterprises. Like: instead of walking through VRS, the voice will authenticate itself when you do a card transaction. Banks have started using it. Over time, call centres will disappear.
