Will we get an alexa or cortana?

[photonfanatic]

Will the open source types ever get a cortana or an alexa? Not those specifically, but our own variant that isn't a scumbag. Something that would pass the turing test, but isn't just spying on you as hard as it possibly can. Something open source, so that everyone can check the code and verify that its not sending anything anywhere.

Will this happen? Or not likely? I think it would be cool if it did, and I'd use it. Cause microsoft and amazon won't rest on their laurels with this. They'll keep improving and improving, until finally they make them seem like you're talking to a real person. I'm sure people would love it, and I probably would too. But I won't use anything they make. But I'd use something the linux community made.

[xenopeek]

We already have it: https://mycroft.ai/. You can run it on your desktop or build a "smart home" device with a raspberry pi for example. They also sell a ready made device. AFAIK like other such programs it depends on a cloud service for speech recognition.

[photonfanatic]

Thanks! I will follow that one closely.

I'll buy one if I can at this point. Looks like they're working on version 2.

[phd21]

Hi photonfanatic,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

You can run this on your Linux computer now, or even Raspberry PI device, see link below. Although their "Mark 2" device looks great too; I'd love to have one.

Mycroft Mark II: The Open Source Answer to Amazon Echo and Google Home That Doesn’t Spy on You | It's FOSS
https://itsfoss.com/mycroft-mark-2/

Mycroft Mark II: The Open Voice Assistant by Joshua Montgomery — Kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ai ... ref=7cauwu

Get Mycroft - Mycroft, scroll down to download for Linux
https://mycroft.ai/get-mycroft/

mycroft-core/README.md at dev · MycroftAI/mycroft-core
https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-co ... /README.md


Love the Amazon Echo? Meet these 3 open source projects | Opensource.com
https://opensource.com/article/16/11/op ... o-projects

Meet Sirius, the open-source Siri clone that runs on Ubuntu | PCWorld
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2898148 ... buntu.html

Sirius | Sirius: An Open Intelligent Personal Assistant
http://sirius.clarity-lab.org/sirius/

[Portreve]

I can't respond to "Will we ever get..." but I can say I have no interest in having such a system myself.

Frankly, even if snooping and all the rest weren't even an issue, sending voice commands just isn't all it's cracked up to be, in my opinion. I have no desire to announce to anyone else in my house what I am trying to do. Moreover, speech recognition still isn't 100% perfect.

Besides, what in the world would I ever use it for?

I don't need a touch screen interface (I'm looking at you, Gnome Project!) on my desktop system, and I certainly don't need speech recognition on it, either.

[AZgl1800]

Voice Commands are so unreliable, as to be a farce for me.


prime example is Garmin GPS "Voice Navigation".

after 3 tries to get it to do what I wanted, I turned the damn thing off.

Google Voice does a pretty reasonable job of "Take me Home" on my Android phone.

it does a fairly good job of "Take me to Tractor Supply Owasso Oklahoma" and it will immediately bring up Google Maps in Drive Mode.

as far as anything else? I have watched medical personnel "back up" correct "back up" correct, so much that I wonder why they hell they even both to use Dragon Speaking ??

as for something that will listen in on conversation in my home?
No Way in Hell will that ever be allowed.

[ImpWarfare]

I have suggested to Amazon if they could do Alexa for Ubuntu and they've stated on twitter the suggestion had been forwarded to the correct team for consideration but who knows they might or might not create it for Linux systems and I hope they make it possible for systems just like Mint itself.

[photonfanatic]

Yeah my wife bought an Echo from amazon but it was agreed that unless she is using it, it stays unplugged in the back room. No kids, so it just sits there for weeks or months at a time with no power going to it. When the Mycroft 2 comes out I'll get that and trash Alexa. As for usefulness though, I'd say you just haven't messed with it enough or experienced the convenience it has to offer. Also I don't think its messed up on any of my voice commands. Or if it has I don't really remember it. Accepting voice commands seems polished well enough to not really be much concern. Here's a few things I've found very convenient:

1. You can ask it what time it is without having to go get your phone. Or date, whatever.

2. You can have it just play a song on a whim, without having to do anything but say it. Vs going to the computer room, sitting down in the chair, opening the media player, selecting the song, etc. Or all that just with your phone. These things are all about convenience and they're quite good at it.

3. A few friends will be over and we'll be sitting around on the couch playing nintendo or something like that. I find it quite useful during those times, cause during the conversations questions will often come up about this or that. You can ask it and it will get you an answer that is good enough. It may not be a perfect answer but it will be good enough that you'll be able to fill in the gaps yourself with little difficulty. Instead of having someone get out their phone, put it into google, wait for it to load because its on a phone, oh wait its loading very slowly because its on a phone, scroll down the the relevant information, etc etc etc. You just say something, and you get an answer. Far more convenient.

Lets just put this way: All in total, its a good time saver. But again it stays unplugged and in an unused room with the door shut. Which of course defeats its own purpose most of the time.

[BG405]

as for something that will listen in on conversation in my home?
No Way in Hell will that ever be allowed.

Exactly.

For any "voice command" stuff here, some obvious OFF switch is mandatory; microphones on computers are also OFF unless required. Apart from that, I can see the benefit of such.

Possible scenario:
Sitting in living room listening to / discussing news item and "AI" launches a search including undesireable terms.

Note that I once caught Cortana trying to perform a search on some random stuff without any intentional prompting i.e. "Hey, Cortana" or whatever it is. That got turned off right away.

[trytip]

for now you can just play with google. you don't have to say hey google you can just hit the microphone search and start talking.

[photonfanatic]

Possible scenario:
Sitting in living room listening to / discussing news item and "AI" launches a search including undesireable terms.

Far as I know it won't do that. Cause they're designed to even be able to tell what you are saying to them, when music is playing. Or other loud noises. It will just sit there and tell amazon about you, and admits to it when you say "Alexa are you spying on me". She says she sends "user data" back to amazon. For sure that means yes. For now they can get out of having her answer harder questions about such things, since these things are kind of weak at this point. In 5 years, not so much. But I'm sure they'll just have it dodge the question and still say "Sorry, I don't know that one". Even though they know people are asking it, and could tell it to answer truthfully.

[Hoser Rob]

Where did this idea that cortana or alexa would pass a turing test come from???? Because it's not true.

[BG405]

Far as I know it won't do that. Cause they're designed to even be able to tell what you are saying to them, when music is playing. Or other loud noises.

Whilst that is supposed to be the case, it evidently isn't foolproof. In the incident I mentioned, there was no music playing or other significant background noise & I definitely did not issue the key-word to initiate a search.

The point here is that I did not even realize it was on. I have no idea what else it might have recorded.

Regardless, I don't like the idea of having a monitoring device in the home as it's somewhat like dialling a radio station & leaving the phone off the hook. You just don't know who is listening to and recording your conversations. Such things will only get activated when needed, as far as I'm concerned.

[MrGrimm]

if we ever do i'll be disabling them.

[lsemmens]

Of course alexa or google or... is good for us. ;D