[HN Gopher] Artist releases album called "Ok Google Play Music" ...
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Artist releases album called "Ok Google Play Music" on Spotify
Author : I-M-S
Score : 395 points
Date : 2020-12-02 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (open.spotify.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (open.spotify.com)
| mgkimsal wrote:
| The artist is 'drumkoon' and has a bunch of similar album titles
| and songs...
|
| https://open.spotify.com/artist/6X9HMvCAb5RiZhcwekJLNY
|
| "Hey Alexa Play Music" and "Hey Siri Play Music" with tracks like
| "OK Alexa Play Lofi".
| loisaidasam wrote:
| Also available on Pandora: https://pandora.app.link/8otPjbOzTbb
| chente wrote:
| Feel like this is a natural byproduct of the SEOization of
| Spotify. https://www.inputmag.com/culture/manipulated-seo-made-
| your-g...
| AirMax98 wrote:
| Modern equivalent of how pop tracks were optimized for a 6
| second ringtone in the mid-2000s.
| llacb47 wrote:
| Get rid of the tracking parameters in the url, thank you.
| allforJesse wrote:
| And thus, the voice-assistant-SEO wars began.
| echelon wrote:
| YouTube Music is so bad. Comically bad.
|
| I had an amazing indie music discovery service in Google Play
| Music. I found so many fantastic underplayed artists, and it
| helped me explore all the small music venues in my city. I've got
| a wall full of signed albums from artists I discovered with
| Google Play Music.
|
| YouTube music recommends _Britney Spears_. It 's so awfully wrong
| about my tastes.
|
| It also randomly inserts YouTube parody videos into my playlist.
| Why the hell would I want to listen to stuff like this
| https://youtu.be/-5jWtz3rzco ?
|
| I hate Google so much now. They're like evil 90's Microsoft, but
| incompetent. They've got their ad monopoly / web destruction
| engine to sustain them, but they're Dilbert Pointy Haired Boss
| bad with everything else.
|
| No gamers will be surprised when Stadia gets canned.
|
| It'll be hilarious when they decide to shutter GCP. Remember when
| it leaked that they were internally threatening to defund it if
| they couldn't hit growth targets? Imagine all their B2B
| relationships getting hit as hard as their consumers do.
| Bootwizard wrote:
| Just use Spotify, it's vastly superior to all other streaming
| platforms and basically runs the music industry these days.
| kevincox wrote:
| I tried it for three months. It pauses randomly in my browser
| and Google Home. The "radio" feature repeats songs like
| crazy, the queuing is super confusing and inconsistent (it
| depends on the "type" of playlist you are listening to IIUC)
| and it consistently recommended me the same songs.
|
| It had some nice features too, but I decided to quit. Now I'm
| just listening to my collection of mp3s but not super happy.
| goddamnyouryan wrote:
| Checkout this product I made a couple years ago after rdio shut
| down: It basically connects Spotify music info to YouTube
| songs: https://minotaur.fm
| xd1936 wrote:
| This is really neat. Well done.
| goddamnyouryan wrote:
| Thanks! I built it several years ago and never really
| promoted it as it seemed to me like the ability to play on
| your phone was crucial, but not really possible to do with
| YouTube videos on iOS. Ahh well.
| [deleted]
| remir wrote:
| Viewed differently: it is ultimately a good thing that Youtube
| Music is bad, because otherwise, that would be another thing
| dominated by Google.
|
| It's like people lamenting how sad it is that Windows mobile
| failed. Well, why would you want Microsoft to dominate both
| desktop and mobile market? Seems like a scary scenario.
|
| In this perspective, I can appreciate how clueless Google can
| be sometimes. It's not a bug, it's a feature! ;)
| kevincox wrote:
| Yeah, but I would like to have a good music product. I'm
| currently between options because nothing works for me. I was
| a happy Google Play Music subscriber for years. All they had
| to to was change the colour scheme and swap the backend and I
| would have been a happy camper. Now I have canceled my
| subscription and don't know what to use.
|
| At the end of the day music isn't critical to me, so I don't
| really care if Google dominates it. If I had to switch I'm
| not too worried about being locked into something.
| mathijs wrote:
| And still no Chromecast support.
| lostgame wrote:
| That is comical if true.
| dorkinspace wrote:
| Do you mean youtube music has no chromecast support? Really?
| mathijs wrote:
| The apps do, but the website does not. music.google.com
| used to have native support, but to cast music.youtube.com
| you have to cast the tab, which is far less than perfect.
| (Instead of streaming directly from the CDN to the
| chromecast, casting a tab will stream from your desktop to
| the chromecast. It works so poorly that sometimes even the
| pitch changes slightly, like an old timey recording.)
| MartinodF wrote:
| It does have Chromecast support, I've used it at least on
| Android and on music.youtube.com. I can't vouch for iOS
| though!
| lighttower wrote:
| No chromecast support from desktop music.google.com. you have
| to cast the Tab.
| robotnikman wrote:
| When they bought Songza back in 2014 and integrated it into GP
| Music, I found their recommendations started to be much better
|
| Its as if they threw that all progress out with YT Music.
|
| I'm willing to give the service a few months to clean up major
| bugs and such and see how it is then, but I'm still looking for
| alternatives
| nikisweeting wrote:
| Years later I'm still bitter about them buying and killing
| Songza, it was one of my favorite recommendation algorithms
| to date, probably second only to "The Upload" auto playlist
| on SoundCloud.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| I'm kind of surprised that your YouTube Music recommendations
| are so bad. For me it gives by far the best suggestions of any
| music service I've used.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > YouTube music recommends Britney Spears. It's so awfully
| wrong about my tastes.
|
| Despite the fact that your Google Play Music "like" data is
| migrated into YT music, it doesn't seem to properly incorporate
| it in the algorithmically generated playlists.
|
| What I've found is that I basically need to treat YT music as a
| clean slate, and specifically start playing and re-liking
| things (i.e., I'd re-play my favorite albums, thumb-down and
| thumb-up again the songs in them).
|
| Now that I've done this, it's doing well enough - in some ways
| better than GPM was (multiple "mixes" presented as options with
| different clusters of artists in the summaries).
|
| I can't say whether re-thumbing was what did the trick, or
| simply re-listening, though. And it's incredibly stupid that I
| should have to do this to make it work correctly.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Google's real business is search and ads.
|
| Everything else are hobby side projects.
|
| Like the rich dude who can self finance that metal album he
| always wanted to record.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > YouTube music recommends Britney Spears. It's so awfully
| wrong about my tastes.
|
| Just dislike these songs/videos. At first all I did was play
| playlists I already had in YT since the 'my mix' (now "my
| supermix") playlist had random songs I listened to 5 years ago,
| but after about a week of using the 'my mix' and disliking
| songs, I started getting a bunch of great songs from artists
| that I otherwise had no idea about.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The problem is, OP already did this. So did I. How much in-
| fighting is there at google that they couldn't just port over
| the data?
|
| Right now I'm pissed that Google tv doesn't have a working
| account switcher. If my wife watches music videos it retrains
| my YouTube music.
|
| Also, youtube music sucks when it comes to spotty connections
| and file management. I have fiber at work and home, unmetered
| 4g, and 100gig free space on my phone. Why doesn't it just
| download everything? I loose service for hours on end and I
| come to find that it has either not saved any songs or it has
| deleted everything it can. Today I started an album and then
| hit a dead spot, and it had deleted all the songs before the
| track I was on, and not qeued up the rest of the album.
| Google music had a setting where you could tell it to
| allocate gigs of space and keep it full. This push to
| simplify user experiences is why I avoid apple, and I hate
| seeing it creep into google.
|
| https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/11/30/google-tv-is-
| perfec...
| freedomben wrote:
| Could not agree more. Even little stuff like my son who is
| on my family plan. He used Google Play Music _all the time_
| with no problems. When they _forced_ us to move to YT
| Music, now it won 't let him get the app because he's too
| young and YT isn't allowed. So I either have to give up all
| the parental controls that I need and use, or he can't
| access the family plan music subscription that I pay for
| and used to have with no problems at all, because I was
| forcefully migrated to a new service I didn't want when the
| old one was perfectly fine. I despise the new world we are
| in.
|
| I'm about to go full self-hosted on a ton of stuff. Plex,
| Book Sonic, Next Cloud, etc. Then I can move when _I_ want
| to move.
|
| Edit: I actually bought a used (came from Google I believe)
| Dell R620 on ebay, loaded to the hilt (dual 8 core (16
| total physical cores) E5-2650, 256 GB RAM, 10 600GB drives
| (SAS)). They're amazingly affordable. I paid around $750
| with shipping. I can run a hell of a lot of stuff on that
| and since I'm mostly at home these days it will be blazing
| fast (way better than existing cloud stuff that is limited
| by my 20Mbps downlink, which is the fastest I can get).
| Nothing like a Gigabit connection to my "cloud" :-D
| judge2020 wrote:
| Unfortunately the problem with self-hosting these things
| is actually obtaining the content (mainly regarding
| movies since iTunes song purchases haven't been DRM
| protected for a long time). Getting the right set-up for
| removing DRM from your uhd/hd blu-rays is hard since
| hardware is constantly being updated (you might have to
| purchase second-hand blu-ray readers), and downloading
| them is technically illegal even if you have the physical
| media - not that the FBI is going to indict you for
| having a personal media library. I imagine books have the
| same issues if you're trying to get unencrypted digital
| versions of them.
| lkbm wrote:
| I definitely get some nice new music on my supermix.
|
| I also get songs I've already thumbs downed reappearing
| repeatedly. It's bizarre how bad it is in some respects,
| while still being decent in others. (They're not even new top
| hits being aggressively promoted. It's mostly 80s rock
| they'll toss in no matter how many times I say I "no, I don't
| like this song".)
| geek_at wrote:
| Had similar experiences. A funny bug was when I pressed the
| next button too fast for some reason my playlist was switched
| out with most popular (I guess). It was only Britney Spears and
| Justin Bieber.
|
| Totally agree on the playlists too. I recently liked a video on
| youtube where a dude put guitar strings in his piano and for
| some reason yt music put that in my liked music playlist. It
| doesn't even contain actual music, just explanations of what
| he's doing
| offtop5 wrote:
| Not gonna lie. I'm very disappointed I can't sync my Stadia
| controller to my PC via bluetooth. Google gave out Stadia pros,
| but it's such a horrible idea ( instead of Xbox Game pass
| stadia forces you to buy additional games).
|
| Google provides a gateway to the internet for most of us. They
| control what we find in most cases , but it's almost as if they
| have tons of money to spend elsewhere but lack any direction on
| how to do so.
| xd1936 wrote:
| Google is a startup incubator where all of their different
| micro-companies happen to be named "Google _________"
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| Dude just stop giving Google the benefit of the doubt and
| switch to Spotify. Google has proven time and time again that
| their priorities lie within their advertising and their search
| engine - Everything else is a monetized side project.
| robotnikman wrote:
| I've tried Spotify, its great but their inability to upload
| your own music is a gamebreaker for me, since I listen to a
| decent amount of indie and obscure bands and songs
| lostgame wrote:
| Apple Music allows this, and might be a better solution for
| you. A client is available on Android and Windows as well.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| I'll second Apple Music. Transitioned to it from GPM".
| ck425 wrote:
| I've added a few of my own albums to Spotify. It's a tad
| convoluted but not difficult.
| LeonB wrote:
| Spotify does let you upload your own music. (I'm a paying
| customer though so you might need that.)
|
| Overall I'm very happy with Spotify but experience has
| shown that within a few years it'll begin the slow and
| unstoppable turn towards Villainy.
| kart23 wrote:
| Just tried it. My experience might be abnormal, but it
| seems glitchy and slow. A playlist that I already created
| with my offline songs synced with my phone, but playlist
| said 0 songs. No error messages, very unintuitive. Had to
| create a new playlist and add the songs again, still
| wasn't showing. Relaunched spotify on both devices two
| times and it finally showed up. And this is for ~20
| songs. I wouldn't want to use this method on a big
| library.
|
| Also, Spotify doesn't upload your music for streaming,
| its just a sync between your phone and computer that have
| to be on the same wifi, and keeps the songs downloaded on
| your phone. Wouldn't work for a collection bigger than
| your phones storage. I wouldn't even compare this to GPM.
| lights0123 wrote:
| You can add custom music in the Spotify desktop client, and
| if you have a mobile device on the same network, it'll
| automatically upload it to that device as well. Not cloud
| based though.
| 17a9f4a4f4e5b3f wrote:
| Some years ago I went to do something by voice and wanted to
| cancel "Ok Google ... nevermind" and then it played Nevermind by
| Nirvana. Thought that was goofy, I didn't ask to play music or
| anything.
| bsimpson wrote:
| "OK Google, play Glass Animals" while riding my motorcycle.
|
| Google starts reading me the Wikipedia page for Glass Animals.
| AlphaWeaver wrote:
| For a while, I had a Spotify playlist called "My Playlist called
| My Playlist" so I could say "Hey Google, play my playlist called
| 'My Playlist called My Playlist'"
| enw wrote:
| Does the voice recognition understand "Ok Google Play Ok Google
| Play Music"?
| natex wrote:
| hah or even "Ok Google Play Ok Google Play Music on Google Play
| Music"
| TerminalWarrior wrote:
| I'm about to drop my next album in early 2021, "Ok Google Play
| Ok Google Play Music"
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I've had moderate luck with podcasts; I use Google's podcast app,
| and want voice commands when driving. But it only works 50-70% of
| the time, and only with some of the podcasts.
|
| I'd much rather just have the ability to set trigger words that
| execute macros. Really, there are only a few of them that i need
| regularly.
| riffnote wrote:
| Does he work in SEO too?
| kseifried wrote:
| Try getting an Alexa/Siri or whatever to play "Radio" by
| Rammstein. Come back when you're done listening to random top 40
| radio or being told there is no Rammstein radio station and click
| the link below to hear the song.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NfI2NeDHI
| acid__ wrote:
| I used to come home and say "Ok Google, turn on the lights."
|
| 80% of the time my lights would turn on.
|
| 20% of the time, I'd be greeted with: "Ok, playing 'Turn on the
| Lights' by Future on Spotify."
|
| And I'd stand there in the dark, listening to music I don't like,
| questioning my life decisions.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious if you have any idea --
|
| -- is Google misinterpreting your voice? E.g. does it hear a
| sound it thinks is "play" in the middle of your phrase?
|
| -- or is it some weird statistical model that because of
| invisible and irrelevant correlations, sometimes concludes it's
| more likely you're asking for music? Like the song with that
| title is currently in the top 40, or was played by you in the
| past, or something?
| davidwparker wrote:
| Anecdotally, I'm at 100% turning on the lights with the same
| phrase (though I do say "hey google" instead of "ok google").
| powersnail wrote:
| There is a certain awkwardness I feel whenever I visit a friend
| who had smartified the house.
|
| "Oh, let me demonstrate this. Ok Google, turn off the lights."
|
| "Ok Google, turn on the lights now."
|
| "Ok Google, mute."
|
| "Ok Google, turn on the lights."
|
| "Ok Google, turn on the lights, damn it."
|
| "Ok Google, turn, on, the, lights---there you go. I swear it
| works better yesterday."
|
| Might as well just flip the switch myself, if I have to debate
| the assistant half of the time in total darkness.
| piyh wrote:
| Smart assistants need to be able to bind predefined activity
| to clapping. The clapper had the UX nailed.
|
| "Alexa, ask phillips hue to turn on the living room light"
|
| vs
|
| _clap clap_
| naravara wrote:
| The insistence on making the spoken interaction feel as
| "human" and "natural" as possible honestly introduces way
| more confusion than it needs to and makes the whole thing
| feel uncomfortable for its parasociability and stiltedness.
|
| In Star Trek they were perfectly comfortable saying
| "Computer! Do the thing" in a more specific, 'computer'
| intonation. It was all fairly natural language, but there
| is no attempt to pretend the computer is a person. This
| made the thing feel more futuristic than what they're
| trying to do now.
| professoretc wrote:
| It's not even that natural; with a new baby in the house
| I've really grown to dislike Alexa just for how much I
| have to _yell_ at it. We 're not a loud household, but
| talking to Alexa is like talking to my grandfather
| without his hearing aids. Everything has to be said at
| least three times, in increasing volume levels.
| nemo1618 wrote:
| As someone who recently acquire a Clapper... I had
| forgotten just how finicky it could be. Can't clap too
| quietly, too loudly, too slowly, or too quickly. Often
| takes me three or four tries! Not exactly an enjoyable
| experience for the person sitting next to you...
| mikerathbun wrote:
| Out of curiosity, is the proper clap speed the same as
| their song from their commercials? If so I feel like I
| could nail that cadence every time.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yeah, then they'll have caught up to the 80s.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper
| [deleted]
| ehsankia wrote:
| The new Android 11 power menu screen has been a life changer
| for me. I now control my lights with my phone 90% of the time
| since it's literally one power button click away, and I always
| have my phone on me.
| aembleton wrote:
| I use the light switch on the wall.
| pradn wrote:
| As a Google employee, I really don't want to be saying "Ok,
| Google" in my home all the time. It's totally possible for me
| to go to work in a subway that has Google ads, waste time on my
| Pixel, work at the Google office for eight hours, waste time on
| my Pixel, walk past the same ads on the way home, watch YouTube
| videos and do Google searches about random topics, and ask
| Google to set an alarm before I go to sleep. It's too much. :)
| npongratz wrote:
| Just wait (a few years, perhaps) until you buy or rent that
| sweet new self-driving car and try to get out of town for
| some rest and relaxation... you turned off the radio, but
| that doesn't matter, because Big G uses the windshield as a
| billboard looming into your personal space, beaming ads to
| the most captive audience that exists.
| idrios wrote:
| The future is now. Already my local gas station has a
| screen that starts playing ads the moment you start pumping
| gas. The mute button on it is broken from being pushed too
| many times, too hard.
|
| Last year my parents rented a room at a 5 star hotel. The
| hotel had a smart mirror and I only ever saw that mirror
| play ads. It's insane.
| kwijibob wrote:
| "Ok, Google" makes everyone hate saying the word "Google". It
| is now linked to the emotions of frustration and anger
| forever.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| Considering Amazon uses "Alexa" and Apple uses "Siri" and
| Microsoft uses "Cortana", it is strange that Google opted
| not to pick an alternative name
| agranig wrote:
| ,,Ok Glass"
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| They would have had to pay the Roddenberry estate
| licensing money.
|
| https://www.techspot.com/news/46668-googles-answer-to-
| siri-m...
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| Is out? Since when has Google been good at branding? Look
| at Google/Android TV's history. Or even Google Play.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > Since when has Google been good at branding?
|
| Google's Mid-2000s marketing and product-nomenclature was
| on-point though:
|
| * Google Mail
|
| * Google Maps
|
| * Google Image Search
| coldtea wrote:
| That's because it was hardly a product name - they just
| slapped their corporate name of top of the respective
| noun...
| vanshg wrote:
| Exactly
| philip1209 wrote:
| Or, was it prescient branding?
| xd1936 wrote:
| Agreed. And I have a small child. I _really_ don't want them
| to be forming "relationships" with brands by asking robot
| assistants named after corporations to do stuff.
| crtasm wrote:
| Not that I want any part in increasing use of always-
| listening devices, but can't you change the trigger word on
| these things?
|
| I've been meaning to have a play with https://mycroft.ai/
| but only out of interest, I don't see myself leaving it
| running.
| hrktb wrote:
| For Google devices you can't change the trigger.
|
| Now you can mispronounce it, that's the only leeway we
| get.
| naravara wrote:
| > Now you can mispronounce it, that's the only leeway we
| get.
|
| Not a bad option. I would much prefer asking 19th century
| Russian author, Nikolai Gogol, to turn on the lights.
| malandrew wrote:
| You can also think of it as a robot assistant that is named
| after a number.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_numbers#Named_numbers
| medium_burrito wrote:
| Like that makes it any better.
|
| "I am not a number I am a free man!"
| pinewurst wrote:
| No, we're their numbers...
| JacobSuperslav wrote:
| i got a toddler and i found out thay saying "ahh-goo-goo"
| activates Google assistant :D
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| So now we know that Bobby Tables grew up to be a musician.
| (https://xkcd.com/327/)
| [deleted]
| bhhaskin wrote:
| Fun fact. shuffle doesn't on playlists larger than 25 songs work
| on YT Music. How did they manage to mess up something so simple
| as shuffling songs.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| Similarly, there's a podcast called the "Bill Simmons Podcast
| Podcast", which one of my voice assistants consistently chooses
| rather than the real one.
| hi41 wrote:
| I can't play the song without a spotify account. Is there any
| other website where I can hear the song. TIA
| bravoetch wrote:
| This guy went the extra mile and put ads for himself at the end
| of each track.
| lc3sim wrote:
| Remember back when Apple was running ads for Chance the Rapper's
| debut album (Apple Music exclusive) "Coloring Book?" Apple was
| also pushing a lot into Siri. I can't recall the specifics, but I
| thought the ad had Chance saying "hey siri play coloring book."
|
| So, I asked Siri the above prompt. Siri took me to Apple Music
| and played an album with the name "Coloring Book" but by a
| different artist.
| lucasgonze wrote:
| This violates one of the terms of the iTunes Music Style Guide.
| You're not allowed to reference Apple's competitors. So, yeah,
| iTunes might well refuse to carry it.
| golemotron wrote:
| There was a band named 'Various Artists' but no one could find
| their albums.
| keypusher wrote:
| The 90's band Self has a similar issue.
| jjulius wrote:
| Vaguely reminiscent of when Marco V released a track called "C:\
| del *.mp3"[0] out of frustration towards mp3 rips. Still amusing
| to me that he didn't quite get the command right.
|
| [0]https://www.discogs.com/MarcoV-
| Cdelmp3-Solarize/release/1334...
| depingus wrote:
| The other day a song called
| S01E02.Return.Of.The.Arsonist.720p.HDTV.x264 by Blood Command
| appeared in my Spotify Discover Weekly. I thought someone
| messed up, but no...that's the name of song!
| notRobot wrote:
| In case anyone else wants to listen to it:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F-AdsnyhToo
| quesera wrote:
| Mr. Robot episode names are also fun:
| "eps1.9_zer0-day.avi" "shutdown -r" "404
| Not Found"
|
| Etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mr._Robot_episodes
| dhritzkiv wrote:
| Points off for not including a release group (e.g. RARBG,
| KOGi, STRONTRIUM, etc.)
| joejohnson wrote:
| what would the correct command be on windows?
| jjulius wrote:
| Instead of "C:\ del _.mp3 ", it should be "del C:\ _.mp3".
|
| Edit: lol, I didn't know that we could format text with
| asterisks on HN. There should be an asterisk before each
| ".mp3", but as you can see, if I put them in it just
| italicizes the text in between them.
| depingus wrote:
| Could've also been "C:\>del *.mp3" if they were trying to
| incorporate the prompt. Either way, who keeps mp3s on the
| root drive anyways?
| sp332 wrote:
| For reference https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Two leading spaces is verbatim (code/literal) text:
| C:\ del *.mp3
|
| Should be: del C:\ *.mp3
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
| jjulius wrote:
| Cheers to you and sp332 below, it's appreciated. There's
| a certain irony in me chuckling over the incorrect code
| in the track title and then being unable to format my own
| text minutes later, haha.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| I never knew that was the reason the track was named that! One
| of my favorites.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| Anybody who uses a "smart assistant" is either easily amused or
| likes to suffer... They are the embodiment of why the current AI
| fad will end up like the last one. No intelligence at all.
| cwmma wrote:
| My wife used to always says "Hey Google Play Smooth Jazz" when we
| got a google home, so since it was hooked up to my spotify, I
| made a new playlist called "Smooth Jazz" that simply contained
| "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Maybe Careless Whisper too while it's at it.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Trump should tweet "Multiple election sources called this
| election differently" would be hilarious. Twitter has been
| mocking him for a long time now with this line. But would take on
| the opposite meaning if he tweeted it, because its a pretty a
| stupid vague statement, that implies the election has multiple
| people calling it differently...or in other words is disputed.
| alpb wrote:
| He has an Alexa version as well
| https://open.spotify.com/album/1iQQXhqMVoQhi9p9JpoxXr, but I
| highly doubt these actually will work due to the reason listed at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25278964.
| thrwn_frthr_awy wrote:
| I've worked on large music platforms and this kind of spam is
| always an ongoing battle. You'll see artists pop up with the same
| name as a popular song, songs named 'play [genre]', and all sorts
| of things.
| [deleted]
| sabujp wrote:
| LOL he has an alexa one too :
| https://open.spotify.com/album/1iQQXhqMVoQhi9p9JpoxXr
| demadog wrote:
| It's too bad the songs don't line up with the titles. He could
| have had actual listeners! Play Workout Music song is a chill
| meditation song...
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Cleaner link:
| https://open.spotify.com/album/4zkEptQvq1lVG0BSPLuLFf
|
| I don't imagine it's likely to have the effect of confusing
| anyone's smart speaker, is it?
| fudged71 wrote:
| I just tried on Google home and it wasn't confused.
|
| I had to say "Ok Google play okay Google play music"
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Siri would be way simpler to cheat. Siri on iPad often times
| reacts to Audible books...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It's like Bobby Tables grew up and became an artist.
| 0x6A75616E wrote:
| or, how to get sued by Google for trademark infringement
| makecheck wrote:
| The default responses for assistants are getting much worse, to
| the point where a misheard phrase can do a _lot_ of things you
| don't want instead of just stopping immediately.
|
| My favorite misfeature is babbling. Used to be you could just say
| "off" to stop a misinterpreted command, which worked fine because
| the assistant didn't used to babble. Now though, its own rambling
| follow-ups interfere with its ability to even _hear you_
| desperately saying "no! off! stop! shut up! cancel!". And my new
| favorite, every command response ending with an unsolicited "BY
| THE WAY: $thing_i_did_not_ask_for".
| imheretolearn wrote:
| I recall a funny incident where I was having a slack call with a
| colleague and I said something on the lines of "Ok Google it".
| Their Google assistant was enabled and it repeated the last
| command which was very NSFW. I couldn't control my laughter and
| we had a nice little laughing break over it
| corytheboyd wrote:
| What a dunk on a bad excuse for an advertising espionage tool. I
| fully support this level of pettiness.
| thedonkeycometh wrote:
| Alexa Play notifications gets all manner of crazy for me
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| "OK Google" is the biggest problem I find with Google Home and
| Google Assistant so far. Things like "Alexa" and "Siri" are short
| and seem more practical. When I say "Ok Google", I feel like
| doing a mouth-exercise. And multiply this extra effort over the
| number of times you need to apply it in a single session. It is a
| pain.
|
| Why didn't Google ever change it?!
| panda88888 wrote:
| Hey googoo also works
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Said with the intonation of Yogi Bear's "hey booboo", it's
| actually quite enjoyable
| kevincox wrote:
| I actually find this much easier to say.
| synunlimited wrote:
| You can say "Hey Google" now which I find much easier to say.
| Would be nice if you could rename it though.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Two words seem always worse than one in my point of view
| cwkoss wrote:
| Privacy. Alexa and Siri get triggered unintentionally very
| frequently in normal conversation.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| I'm not sure you understand their business model if you think
| they made the decision based off of privacy.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| And Google Assistant doesn't? We quite often (~once a week,
| minimum) have our Home mini trigger off of some unrelated
| conversation. 50/50 on if "google" is ever mentioned, too.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Right, Google was worried about privacy.
| aylmao wrote:
| I agree it's harder to accidentally trigger it, but I doubt
| the reasoning behind it is "Privacy".
| sorenjan wrote:
| My Google Mini gets triggered several times a night when I'm
| watching video. Maybe 1/3 of the time it's somebody saying
| "ok", but most of the time it seems to be random.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| I don't believe any of the three when they say they aren't
| recording everything.
| Steltek wrote:
| I frequently reply to my kids with "Ok, go $do_a_thing" and I
| almost always trigger my phone, even if it's in my pocket.
| The kicker is that I use "Hey Google" when I want the
| assistant so the "Ok Google" form is not even needed.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| This is why I only have Siri enabled on my watch which
| isn't listening while the face is dimmed. And yet it still
| randomly triggers a few times a month
| sz4kerto wrote:
| "Ok Google" gets triggered by stuff like "OK cool", that I
| often say. It's maddening.
| Avamander wrote:
| You can say "okay boomer" and it triggers.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Is it actually just "Siri" or "hey siri?"
|
| How is that much different from "Hey Google", both are 3
| syllable. Alexa is too though I agree just saying the name
| flows better.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| I'm no language expert but the difference I can notice is the
| word Siri comes from the tip of the tongue and feels a lot
| easier than google where G comes from the back of the mouth
| and is more awkward.
| moron4hire wrote:
| What does it do? I don't have a Spotify account.
| grawprog wrote:
| No idea I don't have Spotify or use any google assistant stuff,
| but i'm guessing it's supposed to make it so if you try to open
| google play music using a voice assistant, it'll instead play
| that album from Spotify. Maybe as a joke, maybe as a way to try
| and get a bunch of artificial listens.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Yeah, that's what other people are saying.
|
| Damn, that's kinda lame. I was hoping it was tracks of
| phrases starting "OK Google" to make your Google Home flip
| out and do weird shit.
|
| Wasted opportunity.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| It's generic filler music. It exists so that the uploader gets
| paid when someone says "OK Google play music" and the voice
| assistant inadvertently pulls up the album.
|
| Ingenious if it actually works.
| ct0 wrote:
| it doesn't work as you'd think, to play this specific album,
| you have to say "ok google, play, okay google play music".
| renewiltord wrote:
| My fucking Google Home can't even figure out how to play the auto
| playlist "My Likes" on YouTube Music.
|
| Previously, I could say "Play my Thumbs Up" and it could do so on
| Google Play Music.
|
| It keeps playing a song called "My Likes". Jesus fucking Christ,
| Google. If I say "Play my My Likes playlist" something random
| happens.
|
| Do these guys even use their product? I'm just glad this album
| didn't come out before the forced migration.
|
| EDIT: Okay, I went to verify it and this has to be the best
| instance of massive PEBKAC plus some UX donkeyness. The auto
| playlist is called " _Your_ Likes " so I can get the Assistant to
| do the right thing by telling her to play her likes (Ok Google,
| play your likes). What the fuck man. But fine. At least I got it
| working.
|
| I've suffered with this for months and now I find a solution in
| the few minutes after posting this.
| the_af wrote:
| Most "Ok Google" assistance feels like a gimmick to me, but
| here's something very simple I'd love to have working:
|
| I watch a lot of YouTube on my phone when cooking, I even built
| a cardboard stand for my phone for this reason. What I want is
| for YT to respond to these voice commands:
|
| - Pause video.
|
| - Play video.
|
| - Rewind 10 seconds.
|
| - Skip the (expletive) ad <-- ok, I can understand why this one
| might not work.
|
| Sadly, this doesn't work. And it's the only voice assistance I
| really need :(
| drivebycomment wrote:
| "Hey Google pause/unpause youtube" and "Hey Google
| skip/rewind 30 seconds on youtube" work on my android phone.
| So I don't know why you say it doesn't work.
| the_af wrote:
| They don't in mine. What Android version do you have? What
| phone model? Mine is a Galaxy S8.
| drivebycomment wrote:
| Pixel 4. I'm a lazy bum when it comes to phones, so no
| customization or any kind of a special launcher or
| anything.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I hooked up Kalliope[1] to Home Assistant to do exactly this,
| except for the ad skipping voice command.
|
| [1] https://github.com/kalliope-project/kalliope
| crtasm wrote:
| > Skip the (expletive) ad
|
| OK Google, install Newpipe.apk
| kore wrote:
| I've been playing around with a Nest Hub Max, and with that
| you can pause/play a video by holding your hand like a stop
| sign in front of it. Kind of gimmicky, but occasionally
| useful.
|
| Was also curious about your use cases on the phone (aside
| from ad skip), and they actually worked for me. I'm using a
| pixel 4, though wouldn't think that'd make a difference.
| cgb223 wrote:
| My Google Assistant (on Sonos) will somehow always play the
| wrong version of the song.
|
| Ask for War Pigs? Here's the live version
|
| Ask for a Come Sail Away? Here's a terrible cover
|
| Ask for Magic Stick? Here's an instrumental
|
| I swear it just picks the version of the song that pays the
| least royalties and plays that instead of the right one...
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I have a friend that works for one of the major assistants
| not made in MountainView... there is explicit logic where it
| looks if the song title includes "live | cover | instrumental
| | etc" and tries to find a new version.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| This is a larger GIGO problem with the music industry these
| days. It's not a shortcoming of voice assistants in
| particular. Ever use Spotify? Sometimes it seems that 9 out
| of 10 albums returned by any given search are live versions,
| heavily-doctored remastered editions, or remix collections.
| monkpit wrote:
| Anecdotal, but I've never had any problem like this with
| Spotify. I've been a user for about 10 years now.
| grenoire wrote:
| >pays the least royalties
|
| This is a very interesting theory, I don't know if this was
| revealed somehow but considering how consistently terrible
| the guesses are on assistant devices... I wouldn't be
| surprised.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained
| by incompetence" - Napolean
|
| I am sure they're working on improving it. We've not yet
| reached late stage capitalism with voice assistants.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Why would a live version of a song pay less royalties than
| the studio version? Similarly for the instrumental version.
| The only one that seems like it would pay less royalties is
| maybe the cover, if the cover band has a weaker royalty rate
| with the provider.
|
| I think the far more likely explanation is just that these
| home assistant products suck.
| deelowe wrote:
| YTM seems to prefer youtube over their music catalog. It's
| not hard to extrapolate from there. Wouldn't a live cover
| recorded and uploaded by some random person pay less than
| the official version from WB?
| dylan604 wrote:
| The live version and the studio version are not always the
| same owners.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| But how do you mess that up? Let an intern code that shit
| up?
|
| Assuming the voice recognition part worked perfectly:
|
| 1) query song database for input 2) play result that is
| most popular (most plays by manual selection in eg desktop
| client etc)
|
| The only tricky part is to determine whether the query is
| an artist or a title but again in most cases this will be
| solved by checking popularity.
|
| What's a plausible explanation that they mess this up so
| badly?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Play the most recently released result? Covers and live
| versions are often more recently released than the album
| version.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| My assumption has always been that Alexa, Assistant etc.
| just have really naive sorting of results - if I search
| on Spotify, the song results for 'War Pigs' are returned
| with the album version second, but I know that's what I
| meant.
| Sosh101 wrote:
| This was the worst thing about Google Play Music - the search
| engine was awful, always showing really obscure results.
| Maybe your theory is right.
| noja wrote:
| "Here's a dreadful remix."
| 01100011 wrote:
| Given how they killed off Google Play Music and foisted YouTube
| Music on us, I have to conclude that Google hates music and
| wants to do everything they can to ruin the listening
| experience. It's as if no one involved in product design has
| even a passing interest in music.
| freedomben wrote:
| the google assistant is getting objectively worse and stupider.
| It worked better a couple years ago. The thing I hate the most
| about these opaque, closed box systems is the absolute
| dependence I have on them. I can't just freeze the version of
| software I'm running that is working. Nearly every app I have
| that works great, will at some point stop working and regress.
| Almost universally that is true. I despise the new era we're in
| where the user has zero control over what is running on their
| hardware.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I coined "Brogdon's Law" (probably not original to me by any
| stretch) several years ago:
|
| The answer to any technical problem will present itself within
| 30 seconds (sometimes minutes) of asking "Hey, can you take a
| look at this?"
| will_pseudonym wrote:
| https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
|
| Cunningham's Law states "the best way to get the right answer
| on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the
| wrong answer."
|
| The concept is named after Ward Cunningham, father of the
| wiki. According to Steven McGeady, the law's author,
| Wikipedia may be the most well-known demonstration of this
| law.
|
| Cunningham's Law can be considered the Internet equivalent of
| the French saying "precher le faux pour savoir le vrai"
| (preach the falsehood to know the truth). Sherlock Holmes has
| been known to use the principle at times (for example, in The
| Sign of the Four.)
| greggturkington wrote:
| "If you go to a Linux forum and ask for help fixing your
| WiFi driver, everyone will ignore you."
|
| "If, instead, you say 'Linux sucks, you can't even get a
| f*&$ing WiFi driver working!' thousands of people will
| solve the problem for you."
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Fascinating! How does Sherlock use it?
|
| Or put differently, you are completely wrong about Sherlock
| using it in Sign of the Four. Prove me wrong! ;)
| blackearl wrote:
| I find that usually having a second set of eyes when you do
| it again usually forces the person to focus, whereas when it
| wasn't working before they probably had something else on the
| brain or were on autopilot. I like to call it the IT magic
| touch or job security.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In a previous job, we used to joke about having a life
| sized cardboard cutout of the lead engineer left in the
| head end. Things would not be working "nominally" to the
| point we needed help. As soon as the engineer would walk
| in, the erratic behavior would stop. We joked that the
| equipment only behaved that way when he was not in the
| room. We wanted to test the theory to see if the equipment
| knew him or would be fooled by the cutout. You know, for
| science. Nobody was vested enough to actually pay to have
| it done though.
| lucideer wrote:
| Related phenomenon/technique:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_ducking
| the_af wrote:
| Obligatory SMBC webcomic about rubber ducking:
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-rubber-duck-method
| browniefed wrote:
| I had the exact annoyance and figured it out.
|
| If you say "OK Google play my likes on youtube music" it will
| play `Your likes`.
|
| If you forget the `on youtube music` part even if your default
| player is set to Youtube music it will play the `my likes`
| song.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I thought the same but it literally doesn't work for me. Just
| tried it. It plays something random. I tried it on my phone
| to see what it was doing and it picked "my supermix" once and
| the song "my likes" the next time.
| the-dude wrote:
| Did you try _please?_ or tangential _for me?_
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, I'm scared it'll say "I'm afraid I can't do that,
| Rene" and break the illusion of who the master is and who
| the slave is.
| the-dude wrote:
| I would expect it to ask you to take out the trash first.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Dude if this is an issue that evokes such rage you might want
| to think about how good you have it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, I've lived a life that ranges from lacking toilets to
| living for free in beautiful apartments owned by movie stars.
| Trust me, I _know_ my life is great.
|
| But the way I see it is that any Google Assistant PM is going
| to see this for what it is: someone who is angry because they
| love not because they hate.
| dorkwood wrote:
| I'm still surprised these things have become so ubiquitous. I
| remember thinking "these things will never catch on", but they
| caught on massively in spite of their flaws. I guess the
| ability to do an action without requiring hands is such a
| powerful draw that it outweighs all the pain that comes with
| it.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| It's great if you have young kids. Your hands are always full
| and you're always in need of a distraction.
|
| That said, I end up frustrated with Alexa more often than
| satisfied.
| mdoms wrote:
| They recently renamed "Your Mix" to "My Mix" but not "Your
| Likes", apparently.
| 725686 wrote:
| So not much has changed since Apple's Newton:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qxixgQJ4M
| visarga wrote:
| If you take a look at recent neural net papers for dialogue and
| question answering you'll see amazing things. It is really mind
| boggling they don't improve the commercial product, maybe it's
| still too expensive to run for the general public.
|
| Similarly, they say English language Search is powered by
| Transformers. But when I want to perform searches it often
| switches the intent to something wrong. It's a blunt tool, not
| a precision instrument.
| SamBam wrote:
| Come back home from work, I frequently say "Ok Google, text
| Mary 'home in 10'", only to be told that it can't do that
| because it doesn't have a "Home" number for "Mary."
|
| I have to re-do it with "Ok Google, text Mary ' _I 'll_ be home
| in 10'", and growl a lot on the inside.
| woodgrainz wrote:
| For those uninitiated, PEBKAC = problem exists between keyboard
| and chair, aka user error.
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| Also: ID10T error, Layer 8 issue, etc.
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| The OSI reference "Layer 8 issue" is a new one to me.
| That's a good one!
| binarymax wrote:
| It's probably obvious that the only way these services would
| get improved is if they actually made money. Alexa is
| constantly being improved since it's a vector for revenue. Siri
| and Google Home and Cortana are tinker toys for engineering and
| R&D.
| JosephRedfern wrote:
| It's taken me 10+ attempts to get Google Home to wake me up to
| a radio station on weekday mornings. Even with the alarm
| supposedly set, it works maybe 30% of the time, so I end up
| setting alarms elsewhere too.
|
| I'm astonished at how badly it works compared to Alexa, but
| sadly, Alexa no longer supports alarms via BBC Sounds, so it's
| not an option for me.
| untog wrote:
| It feels like a trope to even say it but it _amazes_ me how
| badly Google have handled the transition from Google Play Music
| to YT Music. For me YT Music is an inferior experience in every
| single way.
| david_allison wrote:
| YT Music isn't yet supported in my country.
|
| Inferior is much better than "we'll delete your music library
| on an undisclosed date in December".
| free2OSS wrote:
| People talk about breaking up FAANG and I'm thinking they are
| going to self implode on themselves.
|
| Maybe not Apple because their fanatics will apologize for any
| wrong doing.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| I dislike it too, but I can't put a finger on why YTMusic
| sucks compared to Google Play music. Mind sharing your
| reasons?
| robotnikman wrote:
| One major annoyance for me: No shuffle playlist option in
| the Android Auto interface, you have to pick up your phone
| and do it from there.
|
| Also, the shuffle button only shuffles the current songs in
| queue, not the playlist your currently listening too like
| Spotify and GP Music do.
| untog wrote:
| One big annoyance for me is that every song I play now
| shows up in my YouTube history. For me, watching videos on
| YT and listening to music are activities I do in two very
| different contexts, mixing them together in a list serves
| no purpose and makes it a lot more difficult to navigate.
|
| And on mobile GPM had a very simple functionality: a
| playlist containing all the songs you've downloaded
| offline. To the best of my knowledge YTM has no such thing,
| just a playlist _it makes for you_ of offline songs.
| novia wrote:
| When Google Play started a "radio station" based on a song,
| the songs that came after were changed on each iteration
| based on your likes/dislikes. Maybe they just shuffled the
| same list each time, but it kept it feeling fresh. When you
| ask YouTube Music to play a song, the same set of songs
| will always come after. Not very good for similar song
| discovery.
| free2OSS wrote:
| They moved my favorite songs to one of my THREE youtube
| profiles.
|
| They couldn't move it to my main because it was legacy, but
| that was where I had youtube premium/red whatever. So then
| I needed to switch between accounts. Not fun while you are
| driving.
|
| Oh then they stopped premium so I started hearing ads. Not
| what I want when I'm trying to calm my screaming kid in the
| car. Oh, and I need to keep my phone screen on.
|
| Many of the songs aren't the same as on Google play.
|
| Google seems to be moving toward search/email/YouTube. With
| few other products. Probably good, they can't handle it.
| kiliancs wrote:
| I always enjoy Alexa making a comment out of the blue because
| some word in a conversation sounded a lot like "Alexa",
| apparently.
| free2OSS wrote:
| Yeah that's what got me to get rid of my Alexa.
|
| Now only Google can hear my every word via cellphone and
| Nest.
|
| And look how incompetent Google is. I don't even get creepy
| suggestions on ads since I deleted facebook.
| capableweb wrote:
| Realisticly, how many of the people working on Google Voice,
| Siri and Alexa do you think try to use their own service as
| much as possible day to day? Because just like you, I think
| it's evident they simply don't. They build for others, not for
| themselves, and they miss the point 50% of the time.
|
| What we need are people building interfaces for themselves, not
| people building interface they think are good for others.
| [deleted]
| puranjay wrote:
| Google Play Music was so trash but I stuck with it because I
| had too many tracks sent by friends/my own on it (which Google
| Play would randomly delete altogether at times).
|
| When they forced the transition to YouTube music, I gave up the
| service for good.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It keeps playing a song called "My Likes"_
|
| Meanwhile, here in Siri Land...
|
| Me: Hey, Siri, add "tomatoes" to my Groceries list.
|
| Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?
|
| Me: Groceries.
|
| Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?
|
| Me: Groceries.
|
| Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?
|
| Me: Groceries.
|
| Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?
|
| Me: Groceries.
|
| Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?
|
| Me: Cancel.
|
| I've gone back to paper grocery lists. They Just Work(tm).
| toyg wrote:
| Me: Hey Siri, add tomatoes and grapes to the shopping list in
| Pap-
|
| Siri: I couldn't find a shopping list, do you want me to
| create one?
|
| Me: no. Hey Siri, add tomatoes and grap-
|
| Siri: you have to select which app you want to continue
| <shows 6 apps, including Paprika. I tap Paprika> Sorry,
| Paprika has not implemented this function yet.
|
| Me: Hey Siri, addtomatoesandgrapestotheshoppinglistinPaprika
|
| Siri: ok, I've added "tomatoesandgrapes" to the shopping list
| in Paprika 3
|
| <phone flies out of the window>
| dylan604 wrote:
| They Just Work(tm) if you Think Different(tm).
|
| I don't use any of these "assistants", but curious if you
| responded with "Groceries List"? Knowing they work on
| keywords, to Siri, you may not be actually answering her
| question.
| qz2 wrote:
| I use "hey Siri remind me to get tomatoes today" and then
| manually move it all to the shopping list later.
| davidwparker wrote:
| My wife and I use Google Keep + assistants and they work
| fabulously. We have different lists: Costco, Amazon, Home
| Depot, Grocery, Alcohol, and the only time we ever have
| issues is when one of use says the wrong thing.
| thinkloop wrote:
| AnyList is very good and I believe a fellow HN'er:
| https://www.anylist.com/
| dunham wrote:
| And when it does work, Siri likes to split your item into two
| entries. (e.g. "red salsa" ends up as an entry for "red" and
| an entry for "salsa")
|
| Also fun - you say something, the words you said show up on
| the screen, and then change into completely different words.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Siri likes to split your item into two entries. (e.g. "red
| salsa" ends up as an entry for "red" and an entry for
| "salsa")_
|
| Yep. When it works, I get entries for both "ginger" and
| "ale."
| Throwaway1771 wrote:
| The local processing is more accurate than their algos run
| amuck, I'd reckon.
| eitland wrote:
| I can't understand why I should talk to any of my devices as
| long as they are as idiotic as they are now and like you
| describe above doesn't have the slightest idea about how to
| handle context.
|
| That said Siri feels at least 100 times smarter than Google
| assistant to me, the below are actual (if somewhat
| anonymized) examples:
|
| - Google suggestions when I look at the phone at 5am in the
| morning: "text random friend of a friend that I answered a
| question for over Telegram" or "call customers project
| manager". See https://erik.itland.no/tag:aifails for
| screenshots and more examples. In the years I had access to
| the future it maybe helped me twice by pointing out it was
| time to leave for an appointment.
|
| - Siri suggestions are mostly mundane (more or less
| predictably tells me when to leave for appointments, kids
| soccer and hockey training etc, suggests picking up kids at
| kindergarden - although not consistently, suggests sending
| messages to my wife over our preferred messaging solution,
| tweeting, or if I drive 5 minutes down to the shopping
| center: that I should drive home the way I always do etc) but
| I have never caught it suggesting outright idiotic things
| like Google, and once this weekend it even suggested
| something semi-smart (a text message to my wife that was
| surprisingly close to one I could have written myself to tell
| her I was on my way home, including one of my rather unusual
| abbreviations and with good timing :-)
| mynameisash wrote:
| I remember back in ~93, my dad told me that the Mac we had
| just bought had voice recognition. He warned me -- quite
| jokingly -- that he had to be careful not to say something
| like, "mynameisash, please empty the trash" because the
| computer might hear it and mistakenly delete items in the
| trash.
|
| Almost 30 years later, how many orders of magnitude faster
| silicon and countless person-hours of research and I can't
| get my damn phone (which, yes, _is_ a marvel that way-back-
| when-me wouldn't believe) to recognize, "call
| mrs_mynameisash" when I'm using my hands-free while
| driving. I don't know how many times Google's voice
| assistant has called some (possibly local?) T-Mobile
| instead. And my wife's name sounds nothing like "T-Mobile".
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I remember back in ~93_
|
| I remember, when I was a wee little lad back in '96,
| playing on an old Mac Plus with a black and white screen.
| Even then we had software installed that would let us
| control the old Mac Plus with our voice. It was the first
| time I'd ever used a boom microphone.
|
| Here, go reminisce:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlainTalk
|
| My dad insisted that a boom microphone was required --
| not just any microphone but a "boom" microphone
| specifically. It was interesting when I showed him some
| smaller microphones years later that worked better with
| less noise.
|
| Oh man have I grown since. Hardware and processing power
| have both grown so much. But speech recognition is still
| as dumb (or even dumber) as it was 30 years ago. It
| _certainly_ didn 't need the internet to work back then!
| FabHK wrote:
| One of the funniest video on YouTube in my opinion is
| this 2007 demonstration of voice recognition on Windows
| Vista for Perl programming. The lad spends the first 4.5
| minutes trying to enter ,,open (INFO" before typing it
| out. Absolute classic.
|
| ,,Thank you... delete thank you"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJ0CytAsec
| three14 wrote:
| Since half this thread gives workarounds, and since I had
| the same problem, I'll share my workaround: you can tell
| Google that a particular contact is your wife. There's a
| "relationship" field in contacts. Now I can say "call my
| wife" and it mostly works, although saying her name is
| still hopeless.
| kaibee wrote:
| I agree. Google is collecting all of this data, but every
| time I'm going to Wegmans, "hey google, navigate to
| wegmans", its always, "I FOUND SEVERAL OPTIONS, WHICH WOULD
| YOU LIKE TO GO TO?". And in what is apparently always a
| surprise, I always want to go to closest Wegmans.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| If you've been to Wegmans multiple times, why do you need
| to keep asking Google how to get there?
| reaperducer wrote:
| Didn't Google spend billions to buy Waze in order to
| route people around traffic problems?
| gambiting wrote:
| I know how to get to work, and yet I enter it into my
| satnav every day because it then avoids traffic.
|
| TomTom had this solved eons ago - my TomTom 5000 from
| 2014 automatically sets destination as work when I get in
| the car in the morning, and home when I'm done with work.
| And it learns my schedule per day, so it doesn't do that
| on the weekends, or if I need to pop out somewhere at
| lunch. Such a simple feature from 6 years ago works
| better than anything that Google can seemingly come up
| with.
| dhruvmittal wrote:
| That's what Android Auto does in my car as well-- as soon
| as I turn the on the car on a weekday morning, it gives
| me directions & traffic to work. Ditto for the commute
| home.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I use navigation primarily for the ETA.
| isochronous wrote:
| Google is terrific at answering random questions compared
| to Siri, though. And I use my Alexa products for shopping
| lists. Not too long ago they added a feature where it tries
| to figure out what section of the grocery store things are
| in, and then it groups items on your shopping list into
| those grocery store sections. It's pretty nice and a simple
| "alexa, add <whatever> to my shopping list" is pretty
| bulletproof.
| fredley wrote:
| I built my own with a raspberry pi, touch screen, and tiny
| webserver (on Hetzner). It doesn't use voice. It works
| perfectly in the kitchen, and perfectly on my phone while
| shopping.
|
| https://github.com/fredley/digital-black
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I was with you until the end. I use Reminders lists that are
| shared with my wife, we have many many lists for different
| things. They sync to all my other devices so they're always
| within 2 seconds of reach. But yes, Siri really can't handle
| all this, I have to manage it "manually."
| lilyball wrote:
| Maybe ask her "What did I say?" At least on iPhone, she'll
| show you the textual version (and let you type to modify it).
| Because it sure sounds like she isn't understanding the word
| "Groceries".
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I wonder what the difference is. I not only am able to add
| stuff to my Groceries list 100% of the time but I also have
| multiple shopping lists so I can say "Add x to my Amazon
| list" or "Add x to my Costco list" and never have an issue.
| irrational wrote:
| Dialect? Maybe it understands your dialect better than
| other peoples'
| Macha wrote:
| I suspect the difference is "Is your accent common in the
| bay area?"
| renewiltord wrote:
| I definitely use my "AI Command Voice" to talk to the
| machines.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Tim Cook must hate Siri.
| toyg wrote:
| Tim Cook likely has a human Siri.
| wincy wrote:
| I tried the same and got frustrated. So I said "Siri shut up
| you piece of garbage" and she added "shut up you piece of
| garbage" to my grocery list for me. Very helpful.
|
| Also Siri is constantly having problems knowing if I'm
| talking to my watch or my iPhone, even if my phone is in my
| pocket.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| > Siri is constantly having problems knowing if I'm talking
| to my watch or my iPhone...
|
| Funnily enough, this is one issue I don't have: between my
| phone, watch and iPad I'm consistently impressed at how
| well it manages to choose the best one - does anyone know
| if Apple devices actively co-ordinate which one responds to
| Siri commands?
| 3PS wrote:
| > I said "Siri shut up you piece of garbage" and she added
| "shut up you piece of garbage" to my grocery list for me.
|
| Perhaps it was just being passive-aggressive?
| myhf wrote:
| Perhaps an artist released an album called "shut up you
| piece of garbage"
| tjr225 wrote:
| My wife and I have been using an app called Todoist(no
| affiliation) and have been loving it. Groceries is a shared
| list either of us can contribute to or check off of at any
| time.
| acqq wrote:
| Burnistoun
|
| Voice Recognition Elevator - ELEVEN!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuFcIRlwdc
|
| First aired in 2009
| lucasgonze wrote:
| I take a photo of the fridge and pantry and use it to not
| rebuy anything, and otherwise just improvise when I'm at the
| store.
| masklinn wrote:
| I've been wondering whether I should re-enable siri and give
| it an other shot. I use the todos app for that and from time
| to time it would be convenient to do it handsfree.
|
| I see that I still have no reason to bother, it's going to
| frustrate me more than anything else (especially with how
| downhill voiceover has gone in 12).
| mtrower wrote:
| May as well just give it a try for yourself and see how you
| get on. I use Siri all the time to build shopping lists,
| set reminders (including reminders with alerts), etc. I
| have no problems with it. I also have no problem issuing
| the exact command parent poster is having trouble with.
|
| Point is, YMMV; just try it for yourself.
| paultopia wrote:
| Basically the main use of Siri for me is lighting---it
| isn't so bad at setting HomeKit lights scenes---and, with
| recent shortcuts capability increases, hitting external
| APIs.
|
| The latter point is a bit broader: now that Siri can hit an
| arbitrary URL via shortcuts, you can really just set your
| own trigger phrase to do anything that can be automated.
| You better believe I have a raspberry pi on order which
| will be running a local webserver...
| a2tech wrote:
| We have a HomePod in the kitchen and its (in my experience)
| pretty flawless. I empty the milk and I just say 'Hey Siri
| add milk to the groceries list' and she says 'Ok, added to
| your groceries list'. If I mumble or stutter things can go
| off the rails. Also inline editing of my statements causes
| problems (like where you start saying one word and
| realizing its the wrong word and swapping it mid-sentence)
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I also never have issues and, based on the replies, I'm
| wondering if the Homepod is the difference. It seems like
| people using the Homepod as a hub have better luck than
| those just using their phones.
| Kye wrote:
| I had a similar problem where I wanted a reminder to add
| something to a grocery list outside Apple's ecosystem.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25280410
| JadoJodo wrote:
| Similarly on Android...
|
| Me: Ok, Google. Remind me to leave at 1 O'Clock.
|
| Google: Ok. Do you want to save this? <shows preview of
| reminder, dings to indicate it's listening>
|
| Me: Yes.
|
| Google: Shows Google search results for "yes" and tosses the
| reminder.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Google: Tales From Topographics Oceans, got it.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I use Google Keep for that :). Share it with my wife, we both
| have the widget in our phone desktops (or whatever the home
| screen is called). Works very nice.
| adwww wrote:
| Not if you're a paying google apps customer. Then OK Google
| is even more crippled and won't work with Keep.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I don't use it with OK Google, I just type the stuff. All
| I need to do is unlock the phone, swipe right to the next
| home screen, click the giant widget and type.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Yeah, this annoys the shit out of me. We get less
| features because we paid?
| SamBam wrote:
| Oh, God, I have a google apps account on my phone, along-
| side my regular one, and I once spent three days trying
| to debug an issue where OK Google had become super-
| crippled, only to find out it had somehow switched to
| using my other account.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| It's called a home screen. Never heard anyone use the term
| "phone desktop".
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| The ux of a magnetic Whiteboard and markers on the fridge
| can't be beat
| reaperducer wrote:
| You bring the whiteboard to the grocery store with you? How
| do you keep it from getting erased?
| cgriswald wrote:
| > You bring the whiteboard to the grocery store with you?
|
| I take a photo with my phone. It's not perfect because to
| mark things off you'd have to use the photo-editing on
| the phone which would be rather clunky for that purpose.
| But it works if you don't mind checking things off in
| your head.
|
| > How do you keep it from getting erased?
|
| I've got a glass whiteboard and use liquid chalk markers.
| It's tough to accidentally erase something with those.
| zentiggr wrote:
| In a studio apartment with no blocked lines of sight?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Siri is hit and miss, but setting timers (for cooking) always
| works.
|
| > Hey Siri, set a timer for 8 minutes.
|
| > Ok. 8 minutes and counting.
| wgx wrote:
| Siri is the world's most powerful AI-timer-setter.
| rileytg wrote:
| when i was a working chef, i used this NON-STOP. it is
| actually the first real "tech" i've ever brought into a
| (real working) kitchen that provided real value instead
| of gimmick
| noja wrote:
| You worked as a chef and used a single timer in Siri and
| were happy with that? How?! (Siri doesn't support more
| than one concurrent timer)
| nogridbag wrote:
| I miss the days of instruction manuals. Alexa has always
| (?) supported concurrent timers but it wasn't until
| recently that it started asking me if I want to name my
| timers. But it tries to be "smart" and only ask me when
| it thinks I need to name them.
|
| I only figured out through trial and error that I can
| name my Alexa timers without waiting for it to prompt me:
| > Alexa, set a pasta timer for 10 minutes > - Pasta
| timer, 10 minutes, starting now. > Alexa, cancel
| pasta timer > - Pasta timer canceled
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Siri doesn 't support more than one concurrent timer_
|
| I can't speak for the chef, but it does on HomePod. Each
| gets its own name and that name is announced when the
| alarm goes off.
|
| " _bleep bloop bleepity boop! Eggs timer. bleep bloop
| bleepity boop!_
| anoncake wrote:
| Setting timers is apparently surprisingly hard! Google
| Assistant frequently just tells me to set the timer in
| the app.
| Grazester wrote:
| Use it all the time for cooking with multiple timers. No
| issue here.
| gibolt wrote:
| Alexa is mostly good with timers/alarms, but occasionally
| will swap 15/50 or 8/80.
|
| If you miss hearing the distinction in the confirmation,
| you'll miss the scheduled event
|
| Edit: They also have distinct classification of
| alarm/timers. You can use either word to create one but
| checking what you've set or trying to cancel will result in
| 'no timers/alarms' set if your request doesn't match their
| system design.
| paultopia wrote:
| Siri does that too. For some reason its always 14/40 for
| me. The number of times I've gotten shockingly early
| timers for the drier...
| tesseract wrote:
| Better than shockingly late timers for the cookies?
| ssdspoimdsjvv wrote:
| It's 2020 and that's still everything virtual assistants
| are good for. It's kind of sad, really.
| warp wrote:
| I've had great success with the Google smart speaker with
| "Hey Google, turn off the Living Room TV".
|
| I do have to specify "Living Room TV", even though the
| speaker and chromecast are configured to be in the same
| room, it still just turns off a bedroom tv if I'm not
| specific about which tv.
|
| Also "Hey Google, turn off the Xbox" works, because I
| linked that at some point.
|
| So not just timers! ;)
| disillusioned wrote:
| There's a setting in Google Home where you can alias
| which TV a given speaker is paired to as its default so
| you don't have to name the TV. If you have a device
| _named_ TV, that goes out the window, though.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It 's 2020 and that's still everything virtual
| assistants are good for. It's kind of sad, really._
|
| The thing I use Siri most for is "Hey, Siri. Tell me a
| joke."
|
| My dream job is to work at Apple compiling jokes for Siri
| to belch out on demand.
| _jal wrote:
| This is literally the only useful thing voice assistance
| does in my life.
| andruby wrote:
| The short version works well too. "Timer 8 minutes"
| lagadu wrote:
| No joke, this is the one thing I use my Echo for: as stuff
| is cooking I set timers for each of them and it works
| perfectly. It does virtually nothing else well but it's a
| fantastic keeper of timers.
| pacifika wrote:
| For you maybe.
|
| > Hey Siri, set a timer for 13 minutes
|
| > 30 minutes and counting.
|
| > Hey Siri, set a timer for thirteen minutes.
|
| > oh you already have a timer running, do you want me to
| change it?
|
| > yes
|
| Also I have set timers and lock the phone 'too early' and
| the timer was lost
| Strom wrote:
| I have the opposite problem where Siri always starts a
| timer for 13 minutes when I want 30. I've adjusted to
| setting the timer for 31 minutes.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| I just tried "a half hour" and "half an hour" and it does
| understand that. So that might be an option if you don't
| want to wait an extra minute.
| scott_s wrote:
| Also: _Wake me up at 7._
| baldeagle wrote:
| 4 minute timers are hard. I normally drop the 'for' and it
| gets super confused. "Set a four minute timer"
| dkonofalski wrote:
| You can also say "Set a timer for four minutes".
| faebi wrote:
| It used to be like this for me too. Recently I can't use
| siri anymore when the ventilation is already running. After
| I said my sentence it keeps listening to the noise forever
| until it gives up, even though it understood my first
| sentence perfectly.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I don't use Siri for much, and I certainly don't have it
| always listening. But I did hack out a useful Shortcut to
| record my blood pressure and heart rate to Apple Health.
|
| I say, "Add blood pressure <pause> 120 over 80 plus 60." Then
| I use the shortcut to parse the string on the / and +, and
| record it to Health.
|
| The hard part was finding delimiters that Siri would
| consistently record as a single character. That and realizing
| I needed a manual review step to make sure Siri didn't
| happily pump garbage into my logs.
| pimlottc wrote:
| That sounds useful. What's the third number, BPM?
| SpaceRaccoon wrote:
| > Do these guys even use their product?
|
| I get the impression that many Google employees do not use the
| products they work on.
| bsanr2 wrote:
| The assistant has gotten markedly worse at finding music since
| the home devices came out a few years ago. Songs I used to be
| able to find by describing vaguely it can now no longer find at
| all, and it gives me random indie artists for songs I actually
| know the title og unless I literally spell it out (and even
| then, it often fails). Woe be to you whose desired song only
| exists as a Youtube (but not Youtube Music) video. Something
| behind the scenes has changed, and it's just another reason
| never to trust Google to maintain their services.
| mcguire wrote:
| About 16 years ago, I worked in the IBM Solutions Experience
| Lab (with the smart kitchen and living room and stuff). One
| thing I did was to set up the "smart car" simulator, which
| connected with IBM's cloud stuff at the time, including their
| voice recognition. I'm testing this diddly-bob and say, "Turn
| on headlights." The simulacar honks its horn. Loudly.
|
| Unfortunately, there was a tour going through the lab at the
| time. Some VPs from some company got to watch me honk the horn
| and then bang my head against the desk.
|
| In the last 16 years, the state of the art has not advanced, as
| far as recognizing _my_ speech goes. It still don 't work.
| m-ee wrote:
| This sounds like something from Better Off Ted
| faebi wrote:
| I still don't know how to start play youtube music using siri
| on an iPhone. I also couldn't figure out play music . It's
| truly badly integrated.
| fullstop wrote:
| I have endless frustrations with Google Assistant / Google Now
| / Whatever they call it now. A few examples:
|
| 1. I have my phone set up to trust bluetooth in my car and
| unlock my phone. I get in the car and say "okay google, open
| spotify" -- this is so that it will continue playing what I was
| listening to before I left work.
|
| "Okay", she says, and then tells me that she can't do that
| because my screen is locked. Sometimes this works, and
| sometimes it does not.
|
| 2. When I had Google Play Music it reliably would play random
| sub-par covers of songs rather than the original, even when I
| specified the artist.
|
| 3. Sometimes it decides to rely on screen input instead of
| audio controls. I can't do that while I'm driving.
|
| 4. It sometimes ends voice input too early or does voice input
| inconsistently. I've sent messages to my wife saying "I'm on my
| way home exclamation point" instead of "I'm on my way home!"
|
| 5. Commands which have worked for months suddenly stop working.
|
| 6. Sometimes my screen stays on, forever, after asking to play
| music. (OnePlus 7T, Android 10). This does not always happen.
|
| 7. Google: "Here's your message, send it?" Me: Yes Google: Sits
| there for a moment and pops up the results for "Yes" in the
| assistant.
|
| My biggest gripe isn't what it can and can not do. It is the
| inconsistency that drives me up the wall. I am not a heavy user
| and most of my requests are because I wish for it to be hands-
| free in a car with bluetooth audio. I'm sure that this is a
| harder problem to solve than just me interacting with the
| phone, but it is a common use case.
| craftinator wrote:
| > 5. Commands which have worked for months suddenly stop
| working.
|
| This is my biggest gripe. Whatever magic voodoo ML they use
| is inconsistent, and it's not clear what level of abstraction
| this inconsistency is happening in.
|
| What I want is the reliability of Google Assistant's speech
| to text parsing, combined with a firm, customizable
| interface. Something like If This Then That, where there are
| some default commands with a clear reliable command pattern:
| "send message to George Orwell, we live in your book", and
| commands can be added.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Either that or you are part of some random A/B test which
| made some change to the command. I've always wondered how
| much A/B testing contributes to the inconsistencies in
| Google Assistant, and other things like Chrome or Netflix
| adwww wrote:
| I'm sure when I had an iPhone 5 I had reliable skipping
| tracks and sending text messages via Siri when driving.
|
| I use Android these days, but have stopped even attempting to
| use voice control when driving for all the reasons you've
| mentioned. It does almost feel like the functionality has
| gone backwards in recent years.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I don't even bother trying to use any sort of voice commands
| while in a car unless I'm stopped and the radio is off. Road
| noise makes voice recognition an impossible task.
| gorkish wrote:
| This is my experience with any 'smart assistant' product that
| is or ever has been.
|
| It's always frustrating but never particularly hard to find the
| special incantation that will invoke it to do the thing that
| you want it to. Overall though it's simply not worth the effort
| which is probably why I end up using these overwhelmingly
| complex devices only for their most mundane functions like
| timers and getting the weather.
|
| Trying for anything moderately complex, and I might as well be
| asking the dog to do it for me.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Your dog would like you to know that he is most certainly NOT
| as stupid as a computer.
| markdog12 wrote:
| It's all just a big charade from these companies, as if they
| ever work. Billions of dollars made from devices that don't
| even work, but people buy them because they've been lead to
| believe they work. They're worse than useless, because they
| give you hope that they actually do what the companies say
| they do. What a sham. Maybe in another 10-20 years.
| mlang23 wrote:
| Same here. I really wonder how these products sell. The most
| basic things dont work. And if they are confused, then for
| real. For about 2 years, when Siri happened to misunderstand
| the command "Call ..." it would answer "OK, calling you" and
| actually try to call my own number. This is so weird that it
| actually feels like someone wrote that piece of code to prank
| the user.
|
| If these things would actually work, I'd definitely use one
| regularily. However, whenever I visit an Alexa owner, I
| realize after a few interactions that I really couldn't be
| bothered with this stuff.
|
| I think the "taxi" problem is still around with Siri. Put any
| taxi organisation into your phonebook, and include "taxi" in
| the name. You will likely not be able to call it with siri,
| since it insists to search for taxis in your area. Its always
| the same bug. These things have absolutely no idea about the
| context. And some hand-crafted rules go haywire after a
| while, because apparently nobody reviews them. When I got my
| first iPhone (iOS 5) I put in my date of birth during
| configuration, and promptly noticed that the german speech
| synthesizers says Nineteenseventynine when I enter 1979. All
| aother 4-digit numbers are fine, only 1979 is pronounced
| english. So apparently someone put this exception in there
| for a completely bogus reason, and it stayed there. It is
| still there today, after 8 years.
| jen729w wrote:
| > I really wonder how these products sell.
|
| Because they're currently better than nothing. My HomePod
| works 90% of the time. I can create specific scenes for the
| things she can't quite figure out.
|
| Being able to walk in to the kitchen and tell her to put
| the radio or the light or a specific album or a timer on is
| actually really amazing. Most of the time. Certainly
| amazing enough to suffer the times she doesn't want to co-
| operate, because then I just do that myself which I would
| have done anyway.
|
| It helps that the HomePod is also a great speaker in its
| own right, and that it's one single cylinder with one cord.
| It's a very tidy device.
| mlang23 wrote:
| Well, I have a Sonos One SL, so I know why you like the
| HomePod form factor. but I explicitly got the SL version
| because I really dont see any use for a voice assistant.
| I think the success rate of playing specific artists or
| tracks might be related to how mainstream your choice of
| music is. In my experience, the success rate is very bad,
| actually beyond useable.
|
| The only use case I see which has an acceptable failure
| rate is asking for the time and setting a timer. And even
| asking for the time fails about 1/10 times with the Alexa
| system my gf has in her flat...
|
| And if asking for the time is the only thing which works
| decently, well, that is really telling about the state of
| the art...
| goopthink wrote:
| > It's always frustrating but never particularly hard to find
| the special incantation that will invoke it to do the thing
| that you want it to.
|
| I think magical incantations is a perfect way to think about
| it. Using voice assistants feels more like the land of Harry
| Potter than the land of technology we live in. It's the
| flipside of "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
| indistinguishable from magic".
| lerchmo wrote:
| My toddler wants to hear a song 1000x, I can't do something
| like "Play 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed on repeat or
| in a loop or 10x" I have to tell it each time.
| isochronous wrote:
| Once you start playing the song once, you can generally say
| "repeat on" and it'll loop the song. YMMV depending on
| where the song is coming from.
| pftburger wrote:
| this is a feature, not a bug. "Hey google, play five little
| monkeys ten thousand times on max volume and disable input"
| mkl wrote:
| Could you just make a 10x looped version with Audacity? Or
| can it only play from its own library?
| snaily wrote:
| A UI with next to zero discoverability and an incredibly
| broad input set ("all speech") must really work for most
| conceivable inputs, or only die-hard enthusiasts will keep
| trying.
| igravious wrote:
| Yeah, why can't I `man Alexa` to get its speech UI syntax
| the way I can `man bash` to get its command line UI syntax?
|
| Why not?
|
| Why not?!
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| I don't even bother using them for timers anymore since it's
| usually easier to do it on my watch. Voice assistants are
| limited to navigation requests while driving for me
| munificent wrote:
| It's like someone took the maddening random guesswork user
| experience of mid-80s text adventures, mixed in mediocre
| speech-to-text and decided to base an entire product category
| around it. I absolutely do not get it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| That's the worst thing. It _used_ to work well for me.
| isaacimagine wrote:
| Same. It's been getting _less_ smart over time.
| deaddodo wrote:
| This is the same way I feel about Google Maps. Especially
| with the new streamlined/cards UI. Everything is
| objectively worse and I can't even force it to act like
| it used to. Actual, useful functionality has just been
| lopped off.
| erikerikson wrote:
| And Google Search.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| All technology is becoming more and more this way for me.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Yep. Google has been getting progressively worse at
| recognizing my words over the past two years. It's also
| started randomly capitalizing words that aren't proper
| nouns and seemingly has a blacklist of words that it
| clearly recognizes as speech but refuses to type such as
| "o'clock".
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| "Take a look boss, I made the AI better yet again! After
| the last change, telemetry shows our users are talking
| even longer to the assistant each time they use it.
| Engagement is up, they seem to love interacting with it."
| Causality1 wrote:
| And whoever decided that the Google Assistant "clang!"
| sound needed to be the loudest, most piercing sound
| physically possible to generate with a smartphone
| deserves to be drawn and quartered.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| My dad and I hacked ours apart and now have some
| interesting chess games going.
| oblio wrote:
| I think we need something extremely close to AGI for natural
| interfaces to work.
|
| Similar story for self-driving cars: car driving
| helpers/assistants (lane keeping, etc.) are ok, self-driving
| cars will be a huge disaster until we are really close to
| AGI.
|
| These are the things where getting 80-90% there isn't enough.
| We're smarter than chimps or other animals because we can
| cover the long tail of events.
| hadlock wrote:
| My issue is that I found out the special incantations two
| years ago, and then they changed (I presume) something about
| the core language processing logic, and now none of that
| works.
|
| For example I have Philips Hue lights behind the TV/Screen on
| my living room wall, and I use their "color loop" behind the
| screen when watching movies etc. The problem is that "TV",
| "Television" and "Screen" are semi-protected words, so "turn
| off tv lights" ends up with the TV being turned off 9/10
| times. "We" compromised and those lights are now called
| "screen wall" lights
|
| As for setting certain lights to "the color loop", what used
| to be a 90% success rate (the other 10% turning my lights to
| "the color blue/bloo(p)") will now set the lights of the room
| I'm currently in to the color loop, which is usually the
| living room, not the screen wall. Also as recently as this
| summer I used to be able to set the whole house to "the color
| loop" this feature recently disappeared. The color loop
| slowly and nearly imperceptibly fades the colors from red to
| green to blue etc over several minutes. It's technically part
| of "hue labs" but it's a "beta feature" that's been available
| in the product now for over three years so I would argue it
| is core functionality at this point.
| charrondev wrote:
| I just set up some routines with explicit names:
|
| "Hey google, dinner time " - shut all lights but the
| kitchen and start a playlist.
|
| "Hey google, tv time" - set all lights to specific colours
| and turn off any music.
| apendleton wrote:
| Yeah, my experience is related, in that it seems to think
| "lamp" and "lights" are synonyms, so I have a lamp in my
| living room, but "turn off the living room lamp" turns off
| all the lights in the living room, not just the light
| called "living room lamp." It's like, at this intermediate
| level of intelligence that's particularly annoying: too
| smart to just literally use the names I assigned, but not
| smart enough to actually intelligently apply synonyms or
| fuzzy matching. Worst of all possible worlds.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Worst of all possible worlds.
|
| At least there are no tribbles.
| jen729w wrote:
| Siri (HomePod) was getting confused with my "turn
| everything off" incantation, so I've changed the name of
| the 'scene' and now when we leave the house we instruct
| her to "PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN".
|
| Because coffee is for closers.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| I had to laugh out loud. I suddenly envisioned a future
| where we slowly developed an arsenal of such workarounds
| for the flawed automation creeping into every aspect of
| private and public life, where it reached a point where
| people just accepted that that's the way things are done.
| My grandchildren naturally yell "put that coffee down"
| when leaving the house, because that's just how you turn
| off everything. Sure there must be some ancient reason
| why it's exactly that phrase, but who cares? That's how
| smart people decided AI is supposed to work.
| xapata wrote:
| There's already a host of those artifacts in other
| technologies. Ctrl-Alt-Del, for one.
| Kye wrote:
| I get this trying to make reminders to add things to the
| grocery list with Siri. Siri always intercepts it and says
| "There is no 'Grocery' list. Would you like to make one?"
|
| But I already _have_ a grocery list and a process for it. I
| just want a reminder to add something to it.
| inetknght wrote:
| I also have Philips Hue.
|
| I used to be able to ask Siri: "Hey Siri, please set the
| lights to green." Then she would obediently set all of the
| lights to green. Nice, that's my favorite!
|
| Then a few months ago some update was pushed (iOS? Apple
| Home app? Philips Hue app? Philips Hue Basestation OS? No
| idea) and now that _exact_ phrase (which has worked for two
| years) suddenly elicits a response: "OK, which room?" --
| followed by a listing of the rooms in which I have devices
| and a catch-all "Everywhere".
|
| So now I've had to change my incantation: "Hey Siri, please
| set _all_ of my lights to green. "
|
| I'm just waiting for her to start asking "Do you want Lime
| Green, Aqua Green, or Vomit Green?". Or worse, maybe she'll
| just give up and say "OK, here's a list of Google results
| for Green Lights." Maybe even throw a captcha in there
| asking me to select the green lights at intersections, just
| for good measure.
| jfengel wrote:
| Just out of curiosity, why would you want your rooms to
| be green?
| inetknght wrote:
| Some people claim I live in a cave and green lights match
| the season. I just thought I'd play the part. Maybe I'll
| try red next week and see how that goes.
|
| /s
|
| Actually, I set my living room to red because that's my
| favorite. And I set my dining room to blue because eating
| is cool. And when you gotta _go_ then just look for the
| green light in the hallway in front of the bathroom. And
| my office is definitely purple in the morning to show
| just how much I want to punch things because I have to
| work. It 's pink in the afternoon because pink noise from
| the freeway shouldn't be limited to sounds.
|
| At night I set all the lights to 15%. With the colors
| it's dark enough to not be blinded when I want some water
| from the kitchen but also bright enough to see the
| contours of the door knob or kitchen table or dining
| chair so I don't stab myself with any of the corners
| while walking blind.
|
| What colors do you set your lights to?
| jfengel wrote:
| I am glad that you get so much more color-related
| happiness from your lights than I do.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > It's always frustrating but never particularly hard to find
| the special incantation that will invoke it to do the thing
| that you want it to.
|
| not always. I used to use google play music to play music
| from my own library in the car. any time I asked it to play a
| moderately obscure artist, it would interpret that as
| whatever popular artist had a similar name. it would then
| play the radio station for that artist, since I didn't have
| the premium subscription. I found some success with spelling
| out the artist name letter by letter, but even that
| consistently failed for certain names.
|
| also sometimes I would say "list albums by X" to help me
| remember the name of what I wanted. no matter what I tried,
| it would only list three albums "and others". who could want
| this behavior? if I ask you to list albums, yes I actually
| want to hear every single album name!
|
| I'm now paying for YT music (since the free version
| apparently does not support android auto), and it so far it
| works flawlessly. infuriating.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Do these guys even use their product?
|
| This is a question that I too ask myself daily with a lot of
| the software that I deal with and depend on.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| Perhaps they do use it but they know exactly what to say to
| get it working.
| duxup wrote:
| Outside of setting a timer, I've kinda given up on voice
| commands.
|
| My tolerance for mistakes for simple commands that work
| sometimes / are the right command ... but don't work is ultra
| low.
|
| Like how is it my Android phone will default to just googling
| "exact valid voice command letter for letter" (it's used in a
| commercial for cripes sake!) ... and not somehow notice that?
| rriepe wrote:
| My experience with every personal assistant is the same.
|
| I start using it. I have two or three commands I do regularly.
|
| One of the commands stops working. I stop using it forever.
| shadowtree wrote:
| That's why magic spells use this weird language - to prevent
| accidents.
|
| Wonder if these AI assistants will lead to the development of a
| new language.
|
| Exterminatum Horix Abracadabra (Siri, play something nice).
| germinalphrase wrote:
| YouTube music has been a really mixed bag. Disappointed by the
| forced transition.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It really has. Google Play Music integrated so well with
| everything. YT Music has the massive advantage that there is
| so much more music on YouTube but damn, the integration is
| shambolic.
| baskire wrote:
| The forced transition was the final nail in the coffin to de-
| google myself.
|
| Even Gmail, can't trust that it won't be deprecated in the
| future.
| pnathan wrote:
| I pay for G Suite, it works well. If I have to migrate, I
| will, but it'd be very upsetting.
|
| Music-wise, I have completely transitioned to Alexa and
| Amazon Music. The interface is worse, but they seem to be
| more stable.
|
| I just wish I could upload my own music and have Alexa
| connect to Bandcamp.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Yeah but Gmail is one of the easiest things to leave (if
| you have your own domain). There are high-quality
| alternatives and moving is a half hour of work.
|
| Leaving YouTube is nigh impossible.
| thesimon wrote:
| > high-quality alternatives
|
| any examples?
| StavrosK wrote:
| I personally love Fastmail, I hear Protonmail is good
| too.
| Steltek wrote:
| YTM is completely worthless if you have/had a family plan
| with GPM. My kids basically lost all of their access to music
| as Youtube itself is not available to kids, no matter how
| hard you try or how often a parent enters their password.
|
| In classic Internet tradition, you basically need to setup a
| shadow Google account where you lie about their age and add
| them to your family account anyway. Thanks Google!
| dylan604 wrote:
| Think of the assistants as young children. As a reference,
| someone I know spent some time in Miami with his wife and 2
| young kids. After some time, the young son told his dad that he
| wanted to go back to "yourhammy". The dad eventually decoded
| "yourhammy" was the kid's interpretation of Miami as My-hammy.
| Your Likes => My Likes reminded me of that story.
| wittjeff wrote:
| Regressions in language understanding are common when
| children are acquiring deeper understanding of the rules of
| that language. For example a kid may start saying 'letted'
| for the past-tense of 'let', even if they had used it
| correctly before.
| notRobot wrote:
| You shouldn't have to treat a _Smart_ assistant like a child.
| twicetwice wrote:
| Children are really really smart--just not yet as smart as
| adults.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I think children are probably at least as smart as
| adults, but are missing assumed context on almost
| everything. Maybe the same is the real problem with smart
| assistance?
| renewiltord wrote:
| I believe current evidence is that children grow both
| intelligence and knowledge into adolescence. After that,
| it's mostly knowledge. i.e. both compute and data grows
| for quite some duration, then it's mostly data.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is what I was thinking. If you stop a second to
| think about it from their perspective, it can make more
| sense. (I know in 2020 it is unheard of to think about
| something from a different point of view than one's own.)
| Even real-life human beings in the assistant role get
| things wrong as they interpret the original request not
| as intended.
| codetrotter wrote:
| In that case maybe the assistants should be more like
| children and like ask questions?
|
| Relatedly, I wonder if these assistants "filter bubble"
| you like search does. Like, learning what types of things
| you are looking for and grouping you with other similar
| people.
| mosselman wrote:
| You shouldn't take everything so seriously.
| renewiltord wrote:
| That is a great story. Honestly, I _do_ intend to treat smart
| assistants that way. I can accept that they 're imperfect and
| that they're tools that only work in certain ways. I can
| figure out a way to either make them be useful to me or
| abandon them if the way is too hard. I'm not asking for
| perfection.
|
| The thing is predictability, though, and maybe handling the
| common use cases. It gets frustrating when they get worse.
| Kids, on the other hand, only get better at understanding you
| (though perhaps also better at frustrating you on purpose).
|
| To put it simply, I'm happy to make myself perform
| incantations. I'll say "Ok Google, grooblepuff the bonkman"
| to get the thing to do the thing. This whole thing has made
| me understand why wizards and sorcerers chant _Accio!_ and
| _Sectumsempra!_ and shit like that because if they just said
| "Bring me my firebolt" no one knows how the AI that runs
| magic in the world would interpret that.
|
| And you know someone who feels this strongly about the
| product is pretty bought into it. Like, if I didn't use it so
| much, I wouldn't be complaining this much.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I have 5 Google Home devices (one Max, two regulars, and two
| minis) and I'm dreading the day Google Home shows up on
| killedbygoogle.com.
| baskire wrote:
| Google home was already killed. It's now the google nest home
| mini.
| cbhl wrote:
| Apparently the new brand for speakers and displays with
| Google Assistant is now "Nest" -- as far as I can tell the
| Nest Mini and Nest Hub are the same hardware (?) as the
| Google Home Mini and the Google Home Hub. (And the "Nest
| Audio" is the new version of what was the original "Google
| Home".)
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| If you view the "Nest" brand as a thermostat brand, it
| doesn't make sense. But if you view it as a "smart home"
| brand, it makes sense. However, rebranding to a different
| product name never makes much sense. It just confuses the
| public.
| Narretz wrote:
| Reminds me of this voice command skecth I've watched recently
| (careful, loud): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n-GAd33jew
| Especially, since the problem wasn't the voice command in your
| case.
| tfehring wrote:
| Conversely, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well voice
| recognition works with weird song/album titles nowadays. "Hey
| Siri, play 'Zombie by the Cranberries by Andrew Jackson Jihad'
| by AJJ on Spotify" works exactly as intended.
| nondeveloper wrote:
| There has to be a term for this kind of thing. Keyword hijacking?
| Assistant crashing?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its basically a specialized case of google bombing.
| ISL wrote:
| Little Bobby Tables is growing up. (https://xkcd.com/327/)
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| Spotify's mobile app is honestly one of the worst f'in apps I
| have ever used. I have a family plan and both my wife and I have
| the same issues.
|
| First, Spotify has no idea how to pipe its playlists to Alexa and
| Google ... so you can't ever seem to get either to play
| playlists.
|
| Second, Spotify randomly decides sometimes that it won't connect
| to the Internet, even when your phone has a 4G connection and
| everything else works fine. To compound the issue, Spotify
| doesn't know how to show you your offline downloads when you are
| in Android Auto mode ... so you basically can't even play your
| songs when on a drive.
|
| I need to figure out how to export my playlists and then I'm off
| Spotify forever. Worse customer experience ever.
| evan_ wrote:
| If you say "OK google play spotify playlist xxxxxx" it should
| work.
| ibdf wrote:
| I have noticed that my Google assistant is getting less smart by
| the day. It used to understand a lot more, now it keeps playing
| the wrong thing or turning off all the lights instead of one...
| or it won't stop the alarm when you say stop. It's been getting
| really frustrating... I would be more upset but they pretty much
| give those mini speakers away any chance they get.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Can someone explain to me what exactly this does or how it
| interacts with Alexa?
|
| If I say that command, surely this isn't now going to play, or is
| it?
| offtop5 wrote:
| Can't say expected much , but he sounds like he uploaded a bunch
| of basic loops.
|
| If your gonna do this at least bring real content
| hackstack wrote:
| I don't know, I thought Vulfpeck's "Sleepify" hit the nail on
| the head without bringing any "real" content.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I'm partial to John Cage's _4'33_
| fest wrote:
| I wonder if you could have: a) song called Recursion on Spotify
| that has lyrics of "Ok Google, play Recursion on Play Music" b) a
| song with the same title but lyrics "Ok Google, play Recursion on
| spotify" on Play Music (or whatever it's called now).
| slg wrote:
| The funny thing is that this bit doesn't even work because you
| would have to say "Ok Google play Ok Google Play Music". The bit
| would be much more effective if the album was just named "Music"
| and the tracks various genres. However then the fact that the
| name is a bit isn't even noticeable. There is a weird balancing
| act between the effectiveness of art and making it clear that
| what you are doing is art at all. This artist choice the latter.
| chemeng wrote:
| I first noticed this type of thing happening when "Ok Google,
| play Release Radar" started playing a "Releaseradar"
| album/single vs. my Spotify Release Radar playlist as it used
| to. Simply infuriating.
| jaynetics wrote:
| > The funny thing is that this bit doesn't even work because
| you would have to say "Ok Google play Ok Google Play Music"
|
| the next step for it to go really viral would be to make the
| album consist only of various generic voices saying "ok google
| play ok google play music".
| tolbish wrote:
| South Park did something like that.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=u_kQJiogKCE
|
| It's South Park, so the nsfw should be implied.
| lostgame wrote:
| This is understatedly one of the best tech pranks ever,
| especially recently. (The Max Headroom TV hacking incident
| comes to mind not-so-recently)
|
| Minutes into the episode Twitter was _full_ of people
| posting about how it was messing with everyone 's smart
| speakers. Tech comedy gold.
| gdw2 wrote:
| What if you said, "Alexa play Ok Google Play Music"? Might be a
| scenario when both your Alexa and Google devices (e.g. android
| phones, etc) would start play music unintentionally.
| elefanten wrote:
| I took that to be the point; that in addition to all the title
| permutations, the user may have to prepend the command of
| whatever service they're using.
|
| This creates even more combinations and even more shenanigans.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Every time this topic comes up on here the comments are full of
| complaints about 1) privacy and 2) broken ux. I have to ask why
| do you even bother? I've never once thought I wish I didn't have
| to pick up my phone got 5 seconds to do something simple.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| It's incredibly handy when cooking. "Hey Google set up a 15
| minutes timer", "Hey Google how many teaspoons is in a cup?",
| etc while you have your hands dirty / busy.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| That's an awful trade off.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| How is it a trade off? You can use it for the things it's
| good at, and not use it for the things it sucks at. Seems
| fine to me.
| rmorey wrote:
| Reminds me of "A a a a a Very Good Song" , a silent track
| designed to keep some random song starting with "a" from auto-
| playing when iTunes/Music/CarPlay opens:
| https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-si...
| cortesoft wrote:
| My old car would always auto play `Aaron Burr, Sir` no matter
| how many times I tried to prevent it.
| robterrell wrote:
| "A-Punk" for me. How do car manufacturers not notice things
| like this?
| derwiki wrote:
| Acid Rap for me
| vokep wrote:
| Oh god same here that "Dunananana nananana" is seared into
| my brain :(
| aerovistae wrote:
| Would this work though? You would have to say "Ok google, play
| 'okay google play music"", wouldn't you?
| ericbarrett wrote:
| "Ok Google, play...um...Ok Google, play music"
| martyvis wrote:
| Yesterday, while listening to a song in the car, I asked Google
| Assistant to "play more of this album", and of course I it began
| playing a song called "More Of This" by an unknown band rather
| than what you would think would have been an obvious assistance.
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