Nobody wants to talk to computers

We read a lot these days about the economy not doing well. 1,000, 2,000, even 10,000 ... these are the numbers of people getting laid off from large tech companies. Hard to say if it is because of real business concerns or leaders just realizing that they overhired. For some, it is time to evaluate projects and kill the projects which are going nowhere.

For instance,?Amazon Alexa is a “colossal failure” on pace to lose $10 billion this year. Everyone knows Alexa, but brand awareness is not a substitute for success. The bottom line is - there is not much that people are asking Alexa for or about.

The original thought behind Alexa and Google Assistant and Siri (Cortana doesn't count) was that we would surround ourselves with these magical boxes and engage in conversation.

Most of the commands are 'play music', 'what's the weather tomorrow', or 'start the timer'. When I ask Siri on my phone about anything, the most common answer is 'look what I found' and it shows me a few links from Google search.

The expectation was that you will be able to ask Alexa about a selection of products and buy them with a few simple words. It sounds simple, but what the developers delivered was not as useful as they hoped.

That's especially clear based on feedback from actual users from a?Reddit thread about Alexa:

• Alexa, anytime you’re about to say something that starts with “By the way…” … SHUT THE FUCK UP
• I tried using my Alexa for weather for the first time today. I have never been more angry than when she started giving me book suggestions.
• I get unreasonably angry when she tries to suggest something, who fucking asked Alexa just set my timer for my god damn sausage!

That’s harsh.

And Siri didn't fare much better. A bit of user feedback:

• 'I used to say “hey Siri” when I lost my phone in the house and I’d hear a “UH HUH?” Which helps me find it. Now she just turns on without making a sound even when not on silent. Her only use for me is now diminished.'?

But the best example is given by another user:

• 'I think they always envisioned use cases like “Alexa, order toothpaste” and that’s a big part of what isn’t working out.?
• The reason it can’t do this is more of a problem with Amazon’s marketplace than Alexa though and I feel like that should have been obvious from the beginning. Nothing is organized very well and Amazon sucks at just finding you like, a basic normal version of something like toothpaste. There are so many different variations of every product and some are stupidly overpriced by resellers or come in weird quantities or are some weird outdated version of the product or even downright counterfeits, so you always have to scroll through and read descriptions carefully. And if you do find something you like there’s a good chance it’ll be gone next month when you want to reorder it and you have to search all over again.'

Something which sounds so simple has thousands of unspoken rules and implicit expectations which are difficult to account for. Just as one example, we are still trying to perfect accurate voice recognition:

• "Siri, someone is breaking into my house! Call the police!"
• NOW PLAYING: "EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE" BY THE POLICE.

Is this a “colossal failure”? I wouldn't say so. I think that the expectations were hyped too high and the disappointment followed. The voice assistants were connected to systems which either require further human interaction or suddenly require an unreasonably detailed level of explanation. And nothing gets you more emotional when something doesn't work, but the computer cheerfully suggests that you can buy a book about it. The next level will be when the?computer suggests that you should calm down.

The recurrent pattern? Lower your expectations about technology’s revolutionary potential. Meanwhile, you can safely ignore marketing campaigns portraying smiling people having fun talking to a computer.