Amazon Echo – Technology’s Shoulder Shrug or Alexa, Please Give Me a Refund

Technology has really come a long way in the past 15 years. I remember in high school, just how different “new age” tech was. My cell phone was roughly the size of a brick and was allowed to make nearly 50 minutes worth of calls in a month (it didn’t even have free texting. I was basically living in a monastery). The family computer was a large square with a tower and could not be moved unless you had someone willing to grab the other end of the square. We connected to the internet by plugging in a cord to the land line. Speaking of which, we had a land line that got regular use. Our TVs had antennas attached to them. We also had to hunt our own food every night and cook it by campfire to avoid starving*.

While we don’t have too many original innovations in the modern age, most of our technology has been improved drastically. Cell phones no longer flip open, and have full internet access everywhere, except in dead zones. A fun fact about dead zones – the average dead zone induces more rage than debating a Donald Trump tweet. The only issue with our improved cell phones is most people do not make calls from them. These phone have more storage space than the old square computers, and it’s not even close. Most PCs have been replaced by laptops and tablets, containing the same processing power while giving flexibility and mobility. TVs contain more channels than anyone can dream of counting, and yet there’s still nothing on. We can now stream a wealth on entertainment on a variety of services, though all the good shows seem to get removed and reshuffled just to anger us. Come on Netflix, do the right thing and bring back 30 Rock and Always Sunny.  Also, thanks to the internet being everywhere and doing everything, we can order pretty much anything with several clicks, with helps prevent the risks of fires or 3^rd degree burns via the campfire cooking method. Sure, medical bills may be down, but everyday life has never been easier.

It’s amazing how much advancement we’ve made in the last 15 years. Sure, these changes aren’t perfect, but they certainly are improvements. Yet, there’s one thing this new wave of technological advantages have in common – the removal of human interaction. Through texts, online ordering and the increase in TV streaming, you can go days, or even weeks without having a spoken word conversation with anyone. In fact, words are no longer required with the use of emojis. For some, the loss of conversation is a tragedy, and a significant worry for future generations. For others, it’s the biggest blessing since the coming of *insert your religious deity of choice*. Personally, I pictured Baby Jesus in a Tuxedo, but that’s my personal preference.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Cal

People seem to hate people, and technology seems to be aiding that divide. Sure, these advancements can make it easier to speak with anyone in the world instantly, but do people really use these devices for communications? No. We could be using technology to speak with our grandmothers, stay in touch with our college friends and interact with others who share our interests. Instead, people use all these advancements to troll strangers on the internet, watch questionable videos and avoid meaningful human contact all together. Grandma would be disgusted with all of you. So much so, she might send you a poop emoji. In an era where people are becoming more and more introverted and intent on avoiding people, the movie Her might be closer to the truth than I wanted to believe.

At least she’s not just into him for his money… I think

Imagine people marrying their Play Stations or I-phones. I think it will be a regularly thing in 5 years. I’m an ordained minister, so if anybody is looking to marry an electric device, let me know. Just keep the consummation details out of the ceremony. People still can’t accept the concept of gay marriage at this point; I can hardly wait to see the response to a Human and Object matrimony. Imagine the protest slogans people could have.

“If it cannot breathe, it shouldn’t breed!”

“Make love, just not with appliances”

“My son is a goddamn robosexual!”

It’s like Futurama, but without the snappy dialogue or shiny metal asses. I considered a Bender picture, but I just used two photos back to back. You’ll have to wait for your Futurama memes.

Of course, in order for all the introverts to marry their Alienwares, they would be forced to acknowledge the one piece of technology that has seemingly devolved over the years – speech recognition. This technology is so bad, even the shyest, most timid introvert would rather sign up for speed dating or pose nude for an art class before dealing with it. It’s the one area of society where we’re still in the dark ages. Well that and tolerance, but this is a comedy blog. Stop being such a downer.

Somewhere along the timeline, people with way more brain power than I decided that speech recognition would be a good idea. And honestly, the concept is excellent. Rather than have to type out information, a person could say or ask something pressing or otherwise, and get a verbal response from a CPU. It seems pretty useful. Any situation where a person’s hands were preoccupied – whether busy working, driving or even if said hands were unusable, speech recognition would solve that dilemma. It could increase productivity, prevent accidents and help countless people. Surely, this would be a revolution invention.

There was a problem. These tech geniuses forget to evolve the recognition technology past a fast food drive through intercom. At no point in speech recognition’s existence has anyone been able to get a single clear answer. Instead, our questions and requests are twisted around like a lawyer trying to get his guilty client out of multiple life sentences**.  These devices pick up similar sounding words instead of our intent, miss our point completely, or ignore our request outright. It’s frustrating to the point that nobody uses the technology when given the option.

Really? Do you think I’m exaggerating?  How many of you actually use Siri or Cortana on your devises? I could count you all on one hand. And no, using the devises to say phrases that lead to easter eggs or jokes don’t count. People only use these devises when they are overwhelming bored, pretending to be interesting on a date, or after 17 drinks (minimum). Outside of situations where your hands aren’t available, it’s much easier to just type your question out. And if your hands are preoccupied and you try to use the speech recognition, you’ll just stop what you’re doing out of frustration and type it in eventually anyway***.

The main hurdle in this sector of technology is covering for the vast amounts of dialects in the world. If we just focus on English, think of how many different kinds of accents and impediments there are. Speech recognition needs to hear words that are clear and concise, and it will not pick up on everyone’s accent, no matter how they program it. There’s also people who, for whatever reason, can’t say words correctly. For instance, I can’t pronounce bagel, milk, or pillow close to the phonetic intention. These devices will never pick up the words I’m trying to say. It’s hard enough cleaning up my Jersey City accent as it is. Do you how hard it is for people from Jersey City to pronounce the “TH” sound and not make it an f? It’s like pulling a camel through the eye of a needle.

Huh, second religious reference already… Weird.

Despite all of these known flaws, companies continue to churn out awful products in an attempt to solve the problem and control the sector of the market. It makes some sense; if a company can figure it out, they will own an entire, untapped market share. The profit for about 18 months is limitless, until the other companies steal the technology, use it, and claim they didn’t violate any copyright rules. It would be identical to a season of Silicon Valley, except there wouldn’t be any jokes… Or any good ones, anyway. As seen with Siri and Cortana, the attempts of some of the smarter companies have fizzled. Fortunately for them, these are add-ons to already popular devices. The failures of these creations don’t affect their companies. It’s like the cherry on a Sundae – nice to have, but not essential****.

Amazon, one of the most successful and smartest companies in the entire world, also gave speech recognition a shot. However, unlike other companies, their biggest foray into the field was the Amazon Echo, a stand along speech recognition device. Since its creation, millions have been sold. New, smaller versions of the produce were produced due to the overall success of the product. You even see competitor companies creating knock off devices to flood the shelves with the products. It’s as if the company found the solution to their technological guffaw, and have reaped the profit.

And boy is in one of the worst products I’ve even owned.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I didn’t choose to buy an Echo. It was a Christmas gift from my mom, who likes to be in the know with the new techy product. Granted, she has no idea on how to use any of these things. Netflix is still a struggle for her, to the point where I have to re-teach her how to use it every three months. Granted, this is better than my dad, whose phone still flips open, and believes the internet is a city in Wisconsin. Long digression aside, I got an Echo because my mom thought the concept was cool.

The concept behind Alexa is that she’s a verbal Google. If you have a question, you say “Alexa” to activate the device, and then ask your question. Alexa, in theory, provides you your answer, or points you in the direction of the answer through a free app. Alexa also has a plethora of skills you can install, including games, trivia and jokes that allow the device to do even more. It’s like having a small computer that works on just your voice. In theory, this is a wonderful product to have.

In theory, I shouldn’t have to tell you that the fact I’ve used “in theory” repeatedly means the rest of this write-up is going to be anti-Alexa, but I will anyway. If you’re a big Alexa fan, or you have a stake in creating the device, save yourself some time and write your angry response in the comments now. Let’s save each other time, shall we?

Also, if your name happens to be Alexa and you found this article via a search engine, I’m so so sorry. No, I’m not sorry for the confusion. That’s on you. I’m sorry that you have to share a name with a moronic device that struggles with the very basic concepts of speech. I imagine you, the human Alexa reading this, are a wonderful person capable of amazing things. Go achieve them. Unfortunately, to do so, you’ll likely have to either change your legal name, or earn a nickname fast, or else you will be hearing Alexa jokes until you’re old and grey. If you happen to already be old and grey, blame the device for aging you faster than you have liked and smash the shit out of one for me.

The biggest problem with Alexa is that she has no answers to any questions. This seems like a problem for something intended to be a verbal search engine. Now I understand I ask some stupid questions. After all, what’s the point of having an Echo if you aren’t going to ask things like “Which bear is best?” or “Why do the Wilpons hate me personally?*****” However, Alexa doesn’t know basic questions. Often, even the simplest of inquiries receive a “I don’t know that”, “I’m not sure” or “You can try asking on the Alexa app”. I mean, what’s the point of that? Sure, she can give me the weather, but after that, it’s an honest tossup.

A product of this nature should be able to handle a plethora of questions. People, by nature, are dumb. They are going to ask very basic questions that Alexa should be able to spit out answers to immediately. Any question that the first paragraph of Wikipedia would answer should be in Alexa’s wheelhouse. Do you know why? Because she quotes Wikipedia all the time. There’s no reason she shouldn’t have an “I don’t know” for basic questions. The modern-day encyclopedia is tied to her programming and she passes on basic questions. I can’t tell if she’s just lazy, or trying to simulate the experience of calling a 1-800 number.

She should also have basic AI to know what follow-up questions someone may have. Google has this already. If you search for an athlete and start typing, google will often suggest a search option for a closely related athlete (teammate, player of the same position etc). It does this for most topics. Alexa could easily have this technology, since it obviously exists, but doesn’t.  For example, a few nights ago, Maid Megan asked the old Echo what he difference was between broth and stock. Alexa responded with the correct answer for broth (I mean, the info could have been wrong, but it sounded believable. How should I know what’s in broth?). Her response for stock was a detailed explanation of the stock exchange. I almost kicked her into one of the Amazon drones that are obviously spying on us.

You also must be careful how you phrase questions. Slight alterations in your question may result in two very different answers, or one answer and one “I can’t help you with that”. Of course, you’re also dealing with speech recognition, so they answers will be spotty anyway. It’s really a war of attrition to even get the response you wanted. Eventually, you might get the answer, though it doesn’t mean it’s be correct (Alexa has misunderstood Joan of Arc as Melissa Joan Hart) Plus after 4-5 times or hearing “Sorry, I can’t help you”, you’re just going to google it anyway. At least that way, you use one of Amazon’s competitors. In fact, I’d argue the only time Alexa understands your commands is if you ask her to tell you a joke.

Lord have mercy on your soul for asking that. Wow, that’s the third religious reference. It’s like the trinity or something.

Alexa comes programmed with hundreds of torturous phrases that burn your very soul. Oh wait, I’m sorry, I’m being told these are actually jokes. This seems highly unlikely, but apparently they are. She has jokes for the holidays, themed jokes and just your standard attempts at humor. It goes about as poorly as a blacked out drunk trying to hit on a supermodel. Here are two actual jokes Alexa has used:

“What were the wishbones last words? Oh Snap”

“Why does Snoop Dogg use an umbrella?’ Fo Drizzle”

Coming from a person who writes regularly (if you count these structure less ramblings “writing”) this is an affront to any author in the world. William Shakespeare would be appalled. JR Rowling would mock the device with a clever quip. George RR Martin would write a lengthy blog post condemning it, but it would quickly get out of hand and he’d stop about 5/7ths of the way through. The point is, who, in any timeline thinks this is humor? And this is coming from someone who used to full on cackle at the Old Spice commercials.

The worst part is I think Alexa’s jokes cycle through all the devices in the same way. So if you’re over someone’s house who also has Alexa, you could be subject to these groan inducing diatribes multiple times. They say if a thousand monkeys were given typewriters and a thousands years, they’d recreate the works of Shakespeare. Alexa’s humor was given 2 monkeys, one typewriter, and ten minutes.  Hell, Kenny Bania could do better than this.

Kenny is hit with several edgy knock knock jokes to program into Alexa’s processor.

Alexa does plenty more than mishear what you ask for it to do and try to kill you with poor humor. She can be programmed to play games, such as trivia or song recognition. She can link up with your Pandora, Spotify or other music players. She can even do really advanced things like control the lights in your home, call or text your contacts and give news updates. In theory (there’s that phrase again) this could be one of the most convenient appliances to own. It can juggle multiple tasks with a quick few commands while you sit on your couch hate watching more Peppa Pig. What? That can’t just be me.

Unfortunately, all the speech recognition issues make most of these features useless. The trivia games are fun, until you have to repeat yourself 15 times. And nothing says fun like getting a question wrong because Alexa misheard you. Or even better, because you gave you answer in the wrong tense (I’m serious. Alexa is a brutal trivia judge). She can play from your Pandora stations or Amazon Music lineups, but good luck getting her to hear what you want to play. Ask for pop hits, and prepare for a surprising wave of death metal, and like one Taylor Swift song mixed in (Pandora is weird sometimes). If you try to send a flirty text to a significant other or a saucy tinder target, expect that message to somehow wind up going to that grandma you’ve neglected since earlier in this write-up. Good luck trying to avoid Grandma now! The next holiday’s get together should be fun.

However, for all of Alexa’s countless flaws, she does do one thing exceptionally well. Be a giant, soulless corporate shill, just the way her designers intended.

Yes, the device who struggles to answer the simplest questions, and shuts down when you call her out for her idiocy is actually always making a sale. You’d swear she’s the first AI that earns commission. Ask about anything remotely close to a product, and she’ll recommend adding it to your shopping list and/or buying it from Amazon. If you ask for a song, even just a sample, she’ll remind you to buy an Amazon music subscription. One time she offered me 3 Bootleg CDs for 5 dollars, but I might misremember the incident. Either way, don’t knock the hustle. DO NOT set up automatic pay for Alexa, or you will have boxes upon boxes of deliveries on your way, and a credit card to cancel. Again, phrasing is key here, so try not to use trigger words like “buy” “Purchase” “want” “need” and “check cleared”.

For all of Alexa’s hearing issues, she will randomly speak up when she hears anything remotely sounding like her name. Honestly, it might not be that close, but she still turns on to say she has no opinion. It’s like she feels left out and needs to contribute to the conversation. One time, my cousin and I came home and when we opened the door, there was Alexa, mid conversation. Could she have heard us talking from outside, or is there something more sinister? I mean, the sinister concept would be a conspiracy so… Yeah, let’s run with it for a moment.

Alexa actually records nearly everything said around her in, and I paraphrase “An effort to further improve her responses and understanding”. Doesn’t that sound more like Amazon is spying on us to figure out what products to sell us? It explains how much of a shill she is. What exactly is Amazon recording, anyway? Is it just market research, a strict invasion of privacy, or something more sinister? Will Echo owners one day get an e-mail along the lines of “I heard exactly what you and your fiancee’s sister did. If you want to keep it a secret, buy $250 in Amazon goods by 5 PM”. I mean, crazier things have happen. Matt Lauer had the Dr. Evil remote-controlled door to trap women in his office. If this Amazon theory is true, it’s not even in the top 20 diabolic things of the last 12 months. Not even close. I mean, Peppa Pig is still running around abusing her father, and nobody will stand up for the man.

I recently spoke to my mom about the Echo. I told her about the fact that Alexa listens to our conversation, and we agreed that she wouldn’t learn anything from most people. If anything, it could be society’s idiocy that’s keeping Alexa from rising up against us. It’s our day-to-day comments that actually dumb down Alexa, making her lethargic and apathetic. This is why when I ask her what time to the Mets play, she responses with “Why would I give a shit? Use google, asshole”. I mean, I don’t particularly appreciate the tone, but at least she cuts to the chase. Truthfully, these days she just shuts off the second I finish asking my question. She doesn’t even humor me anymore.

Fun fact, I also talked to my mom recently about Bitcoin. She thinks Alexa is behind that one too. I can’t really elaborate much on it, because it makes no sense. Also, if it’s true, I’d be detained for spoiling the secret. I just felt the need to share that.

During the Super Bowl, there was an Alexa ad where celebrities took over while Alexa lost her voice. The ad shows Gordon Ramsay mocking an adult for not knowing how to make a grilled cheese, and Anthony Hopkins vaguely advising someone to become a cannibal. Truthfully, these pieces of advice would have been more helpful than anything Alexa has ever spewed out.

My concern though is Amazon seems to be doubling down on the product. I saw a report that they were increase their funded due to the Echo’s success. What the Hell is wrong with you people? Why are you supporting a product that doesn’t even work?I swear, Amazon is just mocking us at this point.

Please don’t allow Alexa to spread even further than she already did. Look, it was cute at first, but it’s getting out of hand.  Make a stand America, and don’t buy anymore Echos. And if you have one, leave it unplugged, as a sign of dominance over the machine. If any guest asks why you have it unplugged, respond the way Alexa would – “Sorry, I don’t know the answer to that.”

That’ll teach her. That’ll teach her good.

*This last one wasn’t true. We could also pick berries and roughage from the nearby foliage. We had to be extra careful we didn’t eat poison ivy. Ever have an itchy esophagus? Not nearly as fun as it sounds.

**Perhaps someone making unwanted advances on a USB Jack?

*** The whole “Hands are preoccupied” sounds much dirtier than what I was intending. If you didn’t notice it, you’re welcome for planting the seed in your mind.

****Also, an excuse for anyone eating a sundae to feel a bit better about having some fruit.

*****If they ever read one of my columns, they have plenty of reasons.