Amazon Extends Alexa To Enable Ambient Intelligence

Sean Michael Kerner writes via VentureBeat: Amazon's Alexa voice assistant technology isn't just about natural language processing (NLP) anymore, now it has become a platform that's aiming for ambient intelligence. At Amazon's Alexa Live 2022 event today, the company announced a series of updates and outlined its general strategy for enabling ambient intelligence that will help transform how users in all types of different settings will interact with technology and benefit from artificial intelligence (AI). Among the announcements made at the event is the new Alexa Voice Service (AVS) SDK 3.0 to help developers build voice services, and new tools including the Alexa Routines Kit to support development of multistep routines that can be executed via voice. The concept of ambient intelligence is about having technology available when users need it and without the need for users to learn how to operate a service.

"One of the hallmarks of ambient intelligence is that it's proactive," [Aaron Rubenson, VP of Amazon Alexa] said. "Today, more than 30% of smart home interactions are initially initiated by Alexa without customers saying anything." To further support the development of proactive capabilities, Amazon is now rolling out its Alexa Routines Kit. The new kit enables Alexa skills developers to preconfigure contextually relevant routines, and then offer them to customers when they're actually using the relevant skill. One example cited by Rubenson of how routines work is in the automotive industry. He said that Jaguar Land Rover is using the Alexa Routines Kit to create a routine they call good night, which will automatically lock the doors, provide a notification of the fuel level or the charge level of the car and then turn on guardian mode, which checks for unauthorized activity.

As part of the Alexa Live event, Amazon is also rolling out a series of efforts to help developers build better skills, and make more money doing it. The new Skill Developer Accelerator Program (SDAP) is an effort to reward custom skill developers for taking certain actions that Amazon knows results in higher quality skills based on historical data. Rubenson said that the program will include monetary incentives and also incentives in the forms of promotional credits for developers that take these actions. There is also a Skills Quality Coach that will analyze skills individually, assign a skill quality score, and then provide individualized recommendations to the developer about how to improve that skill.

""Today, more than 30% of smart home interactions

[Anonymous Coward]

... initially initiated by Alexa without customers saying anything." And 70% of those interactions end with the response: "Alexa: Shut the fuck up!"

Re:

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

... initially initiated by Alexa without customers saying anything." And 70% of those interactions end with the response: "Alexa: Shut the fuck up!"

Possibly true. And if I had Mod points it would get a +1 from me.

Jaguar Land Rover is using Alexa Routines Kit...

[bagofbeans]

...so that's off my short list then, innit.

Re:

[bagofbeans]

That would be broke arse, old bean.

Creeptastic ambient stalking

[Anonymous Coward]

At least vendors are making it easy for us to reject their malicious products. All you have to do is look for the word "S.M.A.R.T" in the product description.

Surveillance Marketed As Revolutionary Technology.

Amazon should focus some of that "intelligence" on fixing their website. It has become absolutely impossible to find anything amongst the flood of nameless Chinese garbage and search results harboring no relationship to search terms.

Re: Creeptastic ambient stalking

[Grokew]

Funny thing is the acronym might actually be true. Who knows?

The dumbing down of the citizenry

[jenningsthecat]

The concept of ambient intelligence is about having technology available when users need it and without the need for users to learn how to operate a service.

Everywhere I turn it seems that our oh-so-helpful corporate overlords are trying to "save" us from having to think and to learn things. One might almost think they want us as dumb, pliable and helpless as possible.

Why in the world would they ever want to do that to us? /s

Re:

[gweihir]

I see this as an increasing "skill gap" between people that can still do things and understand how things work and then the others. We already have those in many areas, for example cooking: Some people can at best struggle their way through easy instructions on a box, others cook from memory and by skill all the time.

There are corporate and political interests that want as many as possible people in the incapable state. Because these people have seen less, can do less and hence understand less, they are eas

Re:

[jenningsthecat]

There are corporate and political interests that want as many as possible people in the incapable state. Because these people have seen less, can do less and hence understand less, they are easier to manipulate, i.e. separating people from their money and their vote gets a lot easier.

The question I struggle with is whether these are conscious intentions on the part of politicians and corporations, or if like bees and ants it's simply the way we humans tend to organize our societies. It's probably both - but then I wonder about the percentages.

I also wonder if 'conspiracy theories' get a bad rep because although the conspiracies are in a sense real, they may also be subconscious and/or autonomic and therefore aren't provable.

Re:

[gweihir]

My take is that greedy assholes and authoritarian assholes naturally just go into this direction. No respect for others, others are just seen as a resource to be exploited and dominated and the more incompetent these others are the better. Then there are useful idiots that amplify the effect. It is clearly not a concerted planned effort, the scope and scale of it is too large for that. But push here and push there and just do not fix a problem over there and eventually everything moves in a specific way.

"I see you are jerking off..."

[gweihir]

And then depending on country: "Should I call the police?" (probably the US soon) or "Should I order some lube"?

At least that is what "proactive" plus "ambient" sound like to me...

Only a fool would install a microphone for Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

All you're gonna get is ambient surveillance, ambient insecurity, and ambient annoyance.

Re: Only a fool would install a microphone for Ama

[Grokew]

Wait till Alexa starts dailing 911 when it detects a black voice on the background. Suddenly the swat team shows up to your BBQ without an invitation.

Proactively order products from Amazon

[Tony Isaac]

Alexa is getting more and more annoying, "proactively" asking whether you'd like to buy products from Amazon. I can only imagine it getting even more "proactive" until it orders things without your even prompting it to.

why are you reading marketing gibberish?

[zephvark]

"One of the hallmarks of ambient intelligence is that it's proactive,"

You can just stop reading right there. Marketers use the word "proactive" because it's so much more exciting than saying "active". Nothing they say is going to be even slightly meaningful, because meaning makes their brains hurt. They probably want to sell you a pre-loved townhome. Just smile at them and give their address to the Jehovah's Witnesses.

This reminds me of MS Word

[Jen Chitty]

I always hated Word because it would proactively guess how I wanted to format things and I would have to spend ages fixing document formatting f-ups, and then hunting down and fixing what broke somewhere else when I fixed those. It is still only marginally better decades later, and only because now I know where to find the toggles to turn those bugs off. Now my house will be doing the same thing? No thank you.

Even ignoring the whole privacy snafu, everything about the smart home market today is stupid. Even

Re: This reminds me of MS Word

[Jen Chitty]

In other text editing news, decades later, Slashdot still cannot handle basic text. ‘

'Ambient' also means 'room temperature'.

[surfcow]

and the world already has lots of room temperature intelligences.

Re: 'Ambient' also means 'room temperature'.

[nasch]

Ambient doesn't mean room temperature, it means surrounding.

Ambient Intelligence?

[Residentcur]

In other words, they're adding macros. Not a bad idea, but it won't do anything to change the fact that Alexa is as dumb as rocks if you move anywhere outside its "skills." Even Google assistant can recognize more natural language queries than Alexa, and that's not saying much. I should wait until this is released before asserting this, so just take it as a prediction.