How Alexa knows “peanut butter” is one shopping-list item, not two

Re:How Alexa knows “peanut butter” is one shopping-list item... by thaumasiotes on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @07:14PM (#18711846)

"Coconut" is still an anomalous grocery item. You'd want one of

- a coconut

- [number] coconuts

- shredded coconut

"Coconut" is best matched to that last option, but it's not a natural word choice. (Although it is a natural list entry... do people think of themselves as dictating to Alexa, or as writing the list themselves while happening to use their voice?)

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Re:How Alexa knows “peanut butter” is one shopping-list item... by oralty on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @08:25PM (#18712255)

If i'm making a list as a reminder to actually pick up items.. coconut will suffice.

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Re:How Alexa knows “peanut butter” is one shopping-list item... by thaumasiotes on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @10:09PM (#18712698)

Yes, I agree. If you're writing a list for yourself, a bare "coconut" is a typical entry. But if you're dictating a shopping list to someone else, you're quite unlikely to say "coconut" because that isn't grammatical.

So it turns into a question of how people think about dictating to Alexa.

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Re:How Alexa knows “peanut butter” is one shopping-list item... by p1necone on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @08:41PM (#18712340)

This is a good point - in reality Alexa doesn't really have to do a great job transcribing at all if it's just constructing a list as a reminder for you later.

If this is a precursor to being able to quickly voice order stuff off amazon to be delivered though it's a different story.

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Re:How Alexa knows “peanut butter” is one shopping-list item... by whoopdedo on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @08:21PM (#18712237)

The one I thought of was "peanut butter M&Ms"

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