X10 Community Forum

🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Topic started by: dhouston on March 07, 2018, 05:31:20 AM

Title: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: dhouston on March 07, 2018, 05:31:20 AM
http://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/07/amazon-echo-users-report-strange-laugh-sound-randomly-played-by-alexa (http://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/07/amazon-echo-users-report-strange-laugh-sound-randomly-played-by-alexa)
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: Tuicemen on March 07, 2018, 06:01:39 AM
I read about this on another forum.
The linking to the AWS outage suggests (to me) a hack.
Others are reporting strange (not heard before) error messages to requests.
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: dhouston on March 07, 2018, 06:07:27 AM
Guess the theme of the next SciFi movie.
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on March 07, 2018, 06:46:30 AM
Guess the theme of the next SciFi movie.

I think there already was a movie.... called White Noise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Noise_(film)).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQjctzA0vc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQjctzA0vc)

Because.... some people enjoy being scared......

You guys did read my post about using the Alexa remote and the simon says feature to play a joke on my wife... right.
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: Tuicemen on March 07, 2018, 07:00:12 AM
Initialy i thought it was the simon says option but that doesnt apear to be the case.
I've not experianced either of these (yet) rofl
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on March 07, 2018, 12:48:53 PM
Surely the day will come.... when a AI device really does have a individual intelligence based on it's own "life's experiences" as well as it's programed relationship to the world it interacts with. You know.... like HAL 9000 (the fictional character in 2001 Space Odyssey). According to the story HAL was born/became operational in the 1990's in Urbana, Illinois.

When the "real" AI will become operational........ is anybody's guess. But having a computer voice tell me... "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." really doesn't scare me so much.

https://youtu.be/7qnd-hdmgfk (https://youtu.be/7qnd-hdmgfk)
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: dhouston on March 07, 2018, 08:15:06 PM
According to the story HAL was born/became operational in the 1990's in Urbana, Illinois.
According to Wikipedia, HAL became operational on 12 January 1992 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000).
Not long after. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser))..
"Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Supercomputing_Applications) (NCSA)[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)#cite_note-faq-5) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois_Urbana-Champaign) beginning in late 1992."
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: Tuicemen on March 07, 2018, 10:06:27 PM
Our local TV station reported on this citing even more strange (http://perezhilton.com/2018-03-07-alexa-amazon-echo-freaking-out-users-twitter-laughter-evil#.WqE2WUxFx1s) blurts from Alexa.

Since I have my Amazon dot close to my TV I'm acustom to alexa bluting out things in responce to something being said on the TV and we actualy find it funny.
However I'm not sure how I'd react to Alexa blurting out something without being called on other then reminders. ::) :'
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on March 09, 2018, 09:20:18 AM
... According to Wikipedia, HAL became operational on 12 January 1992 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000).
Not long after. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser))..
"Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Supercomputing_Applications) (NCSA)[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)#cite_note-faq-5) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois_Urbana-Champaign) beginning in late 1992."

That was always considered interesting..... since both the movie and the book date from 1968 (great trivia) . But the Year of HAL's creation is different in the book and the movie. HAL was born in either '92 or '97. 
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on March 09, 2018, 09:23:05 AM
Our local TV station reported on this citing even more strange (http://perezhilton.com/2018-03-07-alexa-amazon-echo-freaking-out-users-twitter-laughter-evil#.WqE2WUxFx1s) blurts from Alexa.

I am pleased to think that our robot overlords will have a sense of humor.
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: Tuicemen on March 09, 2018, 10:08:29 AM
Our local TV station reported on this citing even more strange (http://perezhilton.com/2018-03-07-alexa-amazon-echo-freaking-out-users-twitter-laughter-evil#.WqE2WUxFx1s) blurts from Alexa.

I am pleased to think that our robot overlords will have a sense of humor.
Until you get "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." for every single request.

Some users are reporting Alexa gives a definition for a word in the request rather then do the task for everything.
Amazons response to this was we fixed it by changing the wording in the request for making Alexa laugh.
Do they not get it? No request was made to get Alexa to do the creepy laugh if there was it would be in the history.
And how does that fix the whistling out of the blue or the other issues reported?

I've had Alexa say some strange things but that is always due to miss understanding a request. It is in the history even if I didn't make the request but Alexa heard something and seen it as a request.


Their server for submitting skills also seems to be affected or more accurately infected. ::) :'
The Verification questions rejects answers it shouldn't, giving a silly response. Or so it has been reported ::) :'
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: Knightrider on March 09, 2018, 10:40:35 AM
We had a user here named Art Clark. Account got deleted 6 months before Arthur C Clark died. I've always wondered.......
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on March 09, 2018, 11:25:12 AM
Some users are reporting Alexa gives ...........

I've had Alexa say some strange things but that is always due to miss understanding a request. ......

There has to be an endless number of things that can go wrong... with such a large and all-encompassing machine. It would be creepy if things didn't go wrong (as that would have to be a glitch in the matrix) I don't put much faith in many (or any) of the "reports". After all.... many Alexa users are also licensed drivers.... and I KNOW those people are nuts. 
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: dave w on March 09, 2018, 11:41:03 PM
Until you get "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
My home control computer plays that WAV file when I do a shutdown. Still makes me laugh.
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on March 10, 2018, 12:54:47 AM
I have an awful head cold or sinus infection or something... I just came down with. I don't have much voice and Alexa responded with something like she "didn't understand" when I gave the "bedtime" voice command last night. But she caught on when I repeated myself.

Thankfully..... I didn't have to resort to pushing buttons on a remote. And Alexa reacted faithfully to my "rise and shine" command this morning.
Title: Re: Is Alexa laughing at you?
Post by: HA Dave on October 10, 2018, 11:13:50 PM
AI isn't just for homes anymore. IBM is working with NASA.... and their version of a AI device is on it's way to the ISS (International Space Station).

https://youtu.be/HdQzbZV7FAo (https://youtu.be/HdQzbZV7FAo)

#CIMON


I guess we all knew history repeats itself. But apparently the sci-fi future does as well.