https://growingupbilingual.com/2018/tech-and-gadgets/8-ways-...
There are tons of examples on the net
I use Siri and Alexa almost daily. I feel like we have a very long way to go.
It’s interesting to me that he has grown up speaking at the Echo and slowly learning how to communicate with it in much the same way that he is learning to communicate with other people. His communicative learning progress is definitely a lot slower with the Echo than with me, but that makes sense since he spends a lot more time with people than with the Echo. Even still, I was very impressed the other day when he woke the Echo (and then promptly told it to “stop”, which has been in his vocabulary for a while now).
I’m not sure there’s any real point to this outside of just an interesting (to me) anecdote. And I guess it’s probably time I take the Echo out of his room, or at least figure out how to lock it down, so he doesn’t get into anything age-inappropriate or buy 500 cans of tomato sauce or something.
Anybody else have any interesting experiences with their little ones learning to communicate with smart devices?
To me the biggest issue is the relative one way economic (let us set aside the intangibles, because one cant feed themselves on such) proposition of these devices (upfront cost of "paying" [more like renting since its default locked in to a provider] for the device, and the free "work" people provide with their queries). Reminds me of the proposition of the collect your dna as a service companies.
I guess the incentives of everyone running an instance of sphinx, and sharing models/feedback error corrections continuously with each other in the background with the ubiquity of torrenting now and decreasing reliance on the Amazons in the middle isn't here yet.
Now if you are doing a tech radio show, this has a high entertainment value. If you are busy, in the middle of something and need a task done, these repeated failed interactions are a complete non starter. Imagine a smartphone where the screen wouldn’t register a tap half of the time, it would end up in a bin very quickly.
Plus I am not sold on non self-discoverable UIs. Like I don’t remember the name of all the operas I have on my phone. It takes seconds to browse with a screen. Same things for the commands. If forcing users to learn by heart dozens of commands was commercially viable, we would still be using MS DOS! But GUIs are way more powerfull.
(It actually has a few answers for this)
Amusing example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MECcIJW67-M
Soon, he started to apply that scheme also to talking to their parents:
"Mom, I want vanilla ice cream."
"No, you had enough."
"Mom - I - want - va - nil - la - ice - cream."
This is a beautiful analogy and it applies for adults interacting with Alexa / Google home as well.
I think a lot of us grew up with siblings in the same room. Rooms didn’t lock. Parents not looking but knowing all too well what’s going on. Schools reporting on behavior by phone or by letter that as a kid you didn’t get to see.
I think for me the notion of ‘privacy’ was just being left alone with no one bothering me. It’s only as an adult that I have a clear perimeter where no one should be able to step in. In that regard having a lot of your doings leaked to parents might not be that impacting.
Imo the biggest problem when introducing children to these devices is how to get them to understand that this is very different from an actual human. Even if you find proper wording that a 4yo would understand, these words are easily overwhelmed by the fact that you can talk to it like a normal person. It's already interesting to watch children slowly grasp the concept of (video) calls, but then taking the next step and understanding there isn't a person at the other end of the Alexa dot is yet another step, because if it isn't a human, what else is it?
People are not choosing Alexa/siri/whatever, they dream about it.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3qqep/children-a...
When you add in the idea of their constant childhood pal being a device designed to sell them items from Amazon, it's quite worrying.
If you wanted to take a positive spin on it, you could see it as the possible beginnings of a form of digital post-scarcity centrally controlled economy communism, I suppose.
(note that, in a sense, a book has very limited knowledge and 0 interpretation skills, but its behaviour is passive).
give her some real toys or let her play outside if she's not of the age to even speak normal. don't put little children to have some internet bot as a friend because you're lazy parent/.
I don't mind them being called "Voice Assistants" though, but don't tell me it's AI or ML, since it doesn't truly learn, it calibrates your voice if anything. It doesn't do a darn thing on it's own, someone has to tell it to do that thing, like in some cases the very human communicating. When they are fully autonomous... THEN I'll be happy, and creeped out at the same time.
The real change with AI will be if the masses are allowed to build their own relatively easily enough. When even kids are allowed to be creative with different AI's it will get interesting enough.
Sadly some megacorp will buy it out and lock it up is more likely to happen.
I disagree. It was super stressful/impactful to me as a child. Knowing my parents would be called for misbehavior at school put undue stress on me all day after getting “an orange ticket” or later, detention. I’d get punished at school then punished worse at home.
Once, in first or second grade, my uncle divulged some petty thing I said to him in passing to my parents leading to a sit down talk. I was uncomfortable and angry. This damaged my trust.
Give it time and it'll be like in the movies. I'm a tinfoil hat, vpns, adblockers, but that youtube made me want one, it's funny :)
Google is a global Ad corp, with all your data, I don't even like to talk about it.
Indeed, but those were your family members. You knew them well and there was context, for good or ill.
But in this case the device is a bunch of strangers. Perhaps no one stranger listening in, but everything being processed off site and added to the profile Amazon or Google is building about you.
I wish somebody had told me that about books when I was a kid.
The term AI is a minefield to talk about. But machine learning is well defined and it’s definable you machine learning even though Alexa “doesn’t learn”. Alexa uses applied models which where built using machine learning techniques. Like it or not that’s just the facts.
The 6 year old's pronunciation is not perfect and I could see a lot of frustration when he was initially using it. The drive to use the device has driven him to take his time and really focus on pronunciation so he can play the song or video's that he likes.
They understand it's a computer. But we all tend to treat it as an assistant. A really touching moment was when he used the Home to call "Santa." After he finished that call and we walked away, I saw/listened in My Activity that he asked to call God.
I'm not so sure I'd go that far, or that it's any more dangerous than a web browser.
My kids are quite young and I'm happy for them to talk to Alexa, under supervision. They need to learn to deal with potential dangers before they encounter them without parental supervision.
Mind you, we play with fire too so maybe just ignore me.
Our kids know I can see anything they ask. As well as any time spent on devices. I don't see this as very different from my upbringing. And I haven't noticed any regression in trust.
I think such privacy concepts are too abstract for a child to be concerned about. You'd be hurting their view of technology and enforcing an idea of Big Brother if you were to teach them a voice assistant is a bunch of strangers listening to you.
"At the place we're going, you need to watch your manners. Don't say 'explain this' or 'explain that.'"
"Would it impose on your time unduly to provide me with a concise explanation of the term protocol?" Nell said.
Again Rita made that nervous laugh and looked at Nell with an expression that looked like poorly concealed alarm.
- "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson
What's going on here is that Nell has, without even really setting out to, pierced the fiction that her second utterance is really different from the first. Humans react badly if you treat them obviously as automatons, but disguise it even slightly and somehow that's fine.
She code switches from a modality that's convenient for addressing her instance of Runcible (a powerful AI with the outward physical appearance of a large old book) to one for addressing teachers and people in authority and she does it seamlessly, so that the effect is unnerving.
What are you referring to when you say "something"?
It's strange that you find dishonesty in these personal assistants but then shared a subversive piece of propaganda as an "amusing" video.
The video you shared is suppose to be a friendly fireside chat by two everyday gentlemen trying to objectively discuss the manipulative subversive left leaning nature of the digital assistant. The video however is a form of propaganda and manipulation because the two gentlemen are clearly very right leaning in their ideology and sit there being quietly outraged when Alexa answers questions in a manner that is in opposition to their ideology.
To you it's a "huge mistake" for child to interact with a "manipulative" computer as if it's a person with actual opinions, and thoughts; but it's ok for you to share "amusing" videos of guys being mildly outraged that a computer is respectful of a transgender person when they clearly disagree with showing Katlin Jenner any form of respect.
If anything this video is the type of subversive manipulative bullshit that people should be fearful more so than a stupid little hockey puck that most kids find to be silly and frustrating.
"Siri isn't the iPhone. She's a very powerful computer who lives far away, and talks to us through the iPhone. Just like you can talk to Grandma through it."
"Where does Siri live?"
"Well, um... she lives in a cloud, sweetie."
It is (was?) easy to control your browser's history. It is impossible to control what these devices send to google/amazon.
Your browser's search history only gets populated when you, well, search. These devices are collecting information 24/7, regardless if you are actively engaged with them.
"Aww look, my 3 year old is having a conversation with a massive advertising corporation, and has begun talking to human beings the same way he talks to an inanimate object. How cute!"
Some obvious predictions for Alexa Babies:
1. They will develop lifelong bonds with Alexa/Amazon.
2. They will have lower IQs than their exclusively-human-taught peers and (in more extreme cases) be considered intellectually and developmentally disabled.
3. The derogatory term "Alexa Baby" will come to define a generation who's parents failed them, ultimately leading to the redefinition of "child abuse" and "bad parenting".
Using Echo to Raise Your Child - FREE/ In-App Purchasing
Having a Adult Child that Thinks in Terms of Alexa's Limited Syntax and Limited Understanding - PRICELESS
For most questions, it will just read you the first line (or first paragraph) of the corresponding Wikipedia page. There have been cases that Alexa has said some embarrassing things, mostly because people edit controversial Wikipedia pages is embarrassing way, but I believe they are trying to be more robust to that.
To that point, asking these same questions to my alexa: - RE gender: same response, which is fair enough (and in line with what you'll find in most places online) - RE Muhammed: "the founder of Islam" - RE Jesus: "also known as (...) was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader.[12] He is the central figure of Christianity. Christians believe him to be (etc.)
The way how Alexa rambles (less pause during words, at full stops) the long text about Muhammed also makes me suspect this video is doctored.
But even if it isn't doctored, they definitely skipped the research step and went straight to bigotry and hyperbole...
