Amazon's Alexa is Silly
Ron Knights
Posts: 2,341
Today (Friday) I woke up at 6 AM and couldn't get back to sleep.
I went into the living room, and worked on my computer. By 8 AM I was falling asleep at the keyboard.
I went back to bed, and asked Alexa to set an alarm for 10:15 AM. That way I'd have time to get ready for lunch. I go down and sit with my friends.
Alexa says "I've set an alarm for 3 AM on Saturday."
Gee, thanks, Alexa!
Post edited by Ron Knights on
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Mine has borderline learning disabilities. Can't find the right songs for anything.
I asked mine if she were CIA and she said, no, I work for Amazon.
I remember when I used to hear a signal that let me know I had a notification waiting,
I'd ask Alexa "what are my notifications?!" She'd tell me I had a delivery.
I hadn't received any notifications for a long time and asked if she still gave them.
Alexa said "no."
I told her I was disappointed. I got a "smarmy" response about getting used to changes. Alexa asked if she could do anything else for me.
I said "Go to bed!"
Me: Alexa play 'Her name was Joanne by Michael Nesmith'
Alexa: I could not find 'her name was Joanne by Michael Nesmith' but here is some other music by Michael Nesmith
Alexa then starts playing 'Her name was Joanne' by Michael Nesmith!
That's a good one.
Today I took another nap before lunch. Again, I said "set an alarm for 10:15 AM). Again, Alexa said she'd set the alarm for 3 AM tomorrow.
I got her straight, then took a nap. I woke up early, and told Alexa to cancel the alarm.
She said "I don't have any alarm!"
One of my colleagues had an Alexa. Two or three years ago he found a suspicious correlation between what he & his wife talked about and what appeared as ads on their PC. So they tried an experiment, organised by writing notes to each other. He & his wife had no desire to go to the Carribean, never had & never would (he was terrified of flying). So they decided to have a short conversation about how nice it would be to have a short cruise. Just one sentence each, no further mention after. Within 5 minutes, short break carribean cruise adverts started appearing on their PC. This was without their ever addressing their Alexa about breaks or the carribean. The Alexa was unplugged within 5 minutes and was thrown away next rubbish collection.
I read '1984' by George Orwell. Horrific Stalinist state. Each room had a permanently on TV screen with an integral camera and microphone so 'the party' could ensure there was no privacy and no such thing as a private conversation. Oddly enough, I don't have Alexa or anything similar because of that.
Regards,
Richard
Siri on my iPad annoys me enough
not enabled by voice etc as such but holding Home will often trigger it when trying to do other stuff
my TV has voice search, it is useless
I refuse to address a virtual AI assistant by name. I'll bark commands like "Map! Moldovia." after pressing the microphone icon in Google on my smartphone. And my Amazon FireTV Stick has a physical button to engage the microphone, and I'll bark a command like "Find movie "Vertigo" to see what happens, but that's the extent of my familiarity with a machine. There is no reason for me to give a pseudo brain more respect than I give a dog.
I give my dog a lot of respect. She is very much a valued family member and like all dogs she deserves a great deal of respect.
Hmmm..., well now that my brain fart got flagged and waved five times, I sheepishly crawl back and declare "that's not what I meant to say". I intended to say that I don't give AI voices the respect that I give a dog, a conscious living creature with feelings, smarts, and affection. The phrase I used (flagged five times) had bounced around in my head several times and came out partially more than once, repaired several times and re-analyzed one less time than necessary, and what got left in print was my foot in my mouth, when it had been intended to knock the teeth out of AI machines, not dogs. Sorry.
And I do address dogs by name, perhaps more than people.
I was an early adopter for Alexa for Cars and one day I was already on the road, "Navigate to Sam's Club" and Alexa cheerily responded, "Alright, navigating to Gay Dance Club". <SMH> Not even close, Alexa. Not even close.
Another time, (still Alexa for Cars) I said, "Alexa, tell me a joke"
Alexa: "The other night I was laying in bed looking up at the stars and I thought, "Hey, where's my roof?"" I almost wrecked for laughing so hard.
The novelty wore off pretty quick and it is no longer in my car.
To activate'Alexa' you first say Alexa, then whatever you need answered.
you can change the activation name Alexa with another name which I did and used 'Computer'
was working fine till I started watching Star Trek TNG!
I changed it back to 'Alexa' quick smart.
Do you have a smartphone? Google is always listening. Or observing your browsing habits. While I certainly concede that Alexa will listen, and Amazon will want your information as much as anyone, Amazon want's it for themselves. Google and the rest want to package and sell you to others. Mostly, but not exclusively, for advertising. Facebook is big on creating profiles on people. Coorelate enough data points and even before AI entered the picture these metacorps could know us and our habits better than close friends or family members. If Alexa wants to get to know me, it'll have to wade through hours of TV shows and movies, not to mention anime in Japanese or films in Korean and other languages. More power to them. I look forward to being advertised a custom set of "John Wick filleting knives" or something equally entertaining. Alas, I'm innundated by ads for Daz Studio for the most part. As if I need additional incentive to spend money here :).
I have Amazon music and use it to play music on an Echo while I'm at the computer because my speakers aren't working.
Trying to play some songs and artists is a nightmare. It will listen to just part of what I say before deciding, often incorrectly, what I want. Some names it doesn't even try to recognise.
I have some stuff by a little-known country artist called Amy Dalley. Asking for her by name got me any other Amy who has ever recorded a song. Asking for one of her albums by name got me something containing some of the words from the title.
Eventually I asked for a track by name and artist and it said it didn't have it but here is more music by Amy Dalley and I'm finally getting the albums I know and more. I'm confidently expecting the track I asked for to come up soon...