Human interaction with smart speakers

An article by BBC recently talked about the interesting connection between humans and smart speakers. It claimed how if the speaker voice was too robotic, consumers would expect less of it, but if it sounded too human, then their expectations were very high as far as capabilities go. Oftentimes more advanced smart speakers, like one Google has recently worked on, are so realistic to human conversation and in turn have very advanced things that they can do. The article also talked about the decision of picking a voice for the speakers, and how the majority of the speakers use a female voice which can create more sexist behavior among listeners, especially when the speaker does not work properly. I found it to be very interesting how much thought and attention to detail is required for something as simple as the smart speaker’s voice, as it may seem irrelevant compared to the complexity of the technology and artificial intelligence. There is so much to consider when creating a product like this, and it is very impressive how companies think and research so much into these things.

Reference:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-50561589

2 thoughts on “Human interaction with smart speakers

  1. This idea that people like to interact with real sounding people as opposed to robotic sounding ones reminds me of the concept of the uncanny valley. The idea of this concept is that as robots approach being human like, there is a point where they are nearly human like but still robotic or artificially seeming enough that something appears off. For most people this makes them uncomfortable because it seems almost human but clearly. Personally I find it very interesting that humans prefer human like interaction, but in the even that its not quite human enough it is actually worse than if the interaction was very robotic. For any attempt of trying to make a robot that interacts with people, this concept of the uncanny valley must be kept in mind and avoided.

    Reference:
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-uncanny-valley-human-look-alikes-put-us-on-edge/

  2. I think smart speakers can really help our lives to be more convenient in the future. As technology will be more and more improved, smart speakers will also be on another level. Smart speakers will be far beyond just telling us the weather and time today or help us reserve for a spot in the hair salon. However, it is controversial if it is a good thing or not. It will definitely make our life more convenient. Meanwhile, we will also lose a lot of smart speakers are fully developed. We will not talk to humans anymore, instead, we tell anything to our smart speakers and ask them to do things for us. Conversations and communications will decrease.

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