Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative AI and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset the cost of the technology.

Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative AI and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset the cost of the technology.

  • KnitWit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    4 months ago

    Ah yes, time to pay to have your conversations recorded. Had to happen eventually.

  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    If there was any reason to believe they wouldn’t be selling data anyways, making it a paid thing would make it seem more trustworthy, at least. If it’s free, then you have to assume it’s generating profit through other means.

    Though even if that means of profit is from people using it to make Amazon orders, I still don’t trust it because most of the time when I do order something on Amazon, I need to look through a bunch of sketchy results to find one that looks trustworthy. I wouldn’t trust a voice assistant to pick a better option, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the voice assistant is specifically designed to select inventory they have more trouble moving.

    • lost_faith@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      and now you can pay for that privilege, along with paying them to harvest your data. I guess the “If its free you are the product” no longer stands

    • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      If I remember correctly, that turned out to not work since people apparently don’t like ordering via voice interface. Doing it via an app or website tends to be faster and more convenient.