Articles on the features that get real use seem to suggest that people tend not to use these home assistants much, and if they do, it tends to be for music or turning on the lights: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-echo-most-used-feature...

Which is to say, they're not getting a whole lot of usage of features you might consider to be chatbot functionality.

I think there is a huge discoverability problem created by the limitations of these devices. Because we don't believe it can understand anything we say, we instead limit our vocabulary and interactions to what we are confident they will understand. It's the opposite of AI in that this is the machine training us how to communicate with it. So we sit there barking out commands because we are unsure of what it can handle, creating a giant hunt-and-peck problem.

This, to me, is likely why Amazon sends me emails saying "What can Alexa do now?"

Perhaps the assistants could have more initiative then.

Ex: "Hi (...), since you always turn off the heater when you leave, would you like me to schedule to always do it for you?"

But there's a big problem in finding the right moment. At many times I'd probably be annoyed.

This. I had to disable google's "assistant" notifications because it kept pestering me about things I had no interest in. They always seem to have an "I see you're trying to write a letter. Do want some help?" clippyesque feel to them. When I activate a system is probably the only time it's ok to add a guiding interaction (like do you want me to make this default?). I really wish I could tell the voice activated things, "Ok, from now on when I say to play 'rockin beats' I'm talking about my Pandora channel, don't make me say 'play rockin beats on pandora' every time." I do almost the same things every day with Alexa, but it still messes up simple context. For instance: I will never ask for alexa for news while THE ALARM IS GOING OFF. If it "hears" news while the alarm is going off then it heard wrong. I said SNOOZE.

That’s exactly the direction Apple is taking with their Siri Shortcuts, it can tell when you’re performing actions and then later suggest them in similar circumstances.

Anecdote: I've discovered features with Alexa on accident before. I was watching Jeopardy at my parents house and someone yelled that Jeopardy was on, and Alexa was like "let's play Jeopardy!" and booted up a game for us. I would have had no idea that Alexa could do that if it weren't for the fact that it's.. uh.. constantly listening to everything that goes on in your house.

It reminds me in the early days of "smart phones" people would say where is the Linux phone OS we keep hearing about. They just didn't understand that Android was Linux based.

The Voice Assistance is a vocal chatbot. People were thinking it was going to be text.

No one missed anything except the actual product everyone was talking about. I feel like this happens all the time. We get caught into one strict interpenetration and miss the HUGE thing staring at our face, or ears in this instance.

> It reminds me in the early days of "smart phones" people would say where is the Linux phone OS we keep hearing about. They just didn't understand that Android was Linux based.

It's actually the people who believe that Android is Linux-based that are mistaken. If you write for Android, you write for Android and nothing more. You can't just run the application on a regular Linux (i.e. the one with libc and X11), and if Google ever rips Linux kernel out of it and replaces with, say, DOS, most of the applications won't even need to be recompiled, because they were using Android's API/ABI.

That changes nothing about Android being Linux based, though. The word "based" has a definition, and you're trying to change it.

Then what does it mean "to be based on"? What's its definition, and a one that's well-established and commonly agreed upon, since you're trying to invoke it?

"a fundamental principle or groundwork; foundation; basis"[1]

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/based

And in what way is the Linux kernel the "fundamental principle" or "foundation" of Android? How is it so important that you can rip it out and replace with something totally different without much change to the applications running on top?

You can replace NT with Linux (or Linux with NT) as well. Userspace has nothing to do with this, kernel has its API and the userspace is built on top of it

> You can replace NT with Linux (or Linux with NT) as well.

No, not quite, not without enormous effort. Look at Cygwin or WSL or Wine: tons of work poured into and still not there yet.

On the other hand, typical Android application only ever touches Android's API and doesn't even leave its JVM. Replacing whole kernel (with obvious single point of work in Java interpreter) would be practically invisible.

I think you’re confused about Linux being anything more than a kernel

How so? Android runs on the Linux Kernel.

Ehhhh... I'd say they're less effective than a simple switch so far. Like the chatbots that are good in constrained environments because they're glorified menu systems.

When we can reasonably "chat" with our voice assistants then we have actually gotten there. More specifically, when I can tell my voice chatbot I just want to say "alexa" in the morning when the alarm goes off to snooze. Or when they are adaptable and pattern observant enough that I can say "alexa the usual" in the morning and get the higher volume as I walk through the house and news and my favorite podcast as I ask for every morning. When they come close to accomplishing those things, then we will have vocal chatbots. When they can "remember" just as much as the original Eliza chatbot then we will be there. Currently they are more like vocal light switches than vocal chatbots.

Indeed. The bot interface is being produced by the giants because they are the only ones with the budget for it. Just like google was the only firm with the budget to make self driving cars actually work, and will likely dominate that field for years to come as a result.

There will be room for startups to put the glue between the bots be everything else, but the core tech for the conversational interface is not going to come from startups.

> the rise of digital assistants in Google Home, Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, is, in a sense, the rise of the chat bot

Actually, I'm still quite bullish on this. Advocates always talk about how 'VUI' (Voice User Interfaces) will be the next big thing but from what I've observed most people - actual users, not financially invested in their success - still remain quite bullish on them, or they only use them to set timers.

I don't believe Amazon, Google, or Apple have ever actually released sales figures for their assistants. I believe its because the numbers would look so insignificant compared to everything else.

Do you mean bearish? If not, your comment confuses me.

Huh, apparently I do. It looks like I've been using that word incorrectly for quite a while.

I mean that I'm, put lightly, skeptical of the whole digital voice assistant thing.

When I first heard the terms bearish and bullish I thought they were confusing and un-intuitive... Until I heard the following explanation: Bulls thrust their horns up. Bears swipe their claws down. Bulls horn up, Bears claw down. After that it was easy to remember and now it's second nature.

You're one of today's lucky 10,000! :D https://xkcd.com/1053/

Huh. I always just thought of it as bears hibernating / being lethargic.

And the other ones the other one.

ahhh can see that. Bears are lumbering and Bulls are wildly exhuberant. Although, usually that exhuberance smashes everything in it's path (China shop) or tries to fling a human and gore them (rodeo). Then again maybe that is still apt -- everyone is happy about a bull market until it gets out of control and we are all flung off if it!

I can never remember which is which. Thanks for that mnemonic!