Part Four: Intended & Unintended Uses — Artificial Intelligence — Voice Assistants
Artificial Intelligence — Voice Assistants
Back to Basics
The need for improvement has been changing the world for thousands of years. Numerous inventions have filled gaps with intended and unintended uses in response to this desire for advancement. Take the wheel, for example. It was developed to assist potters with their clay back in Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C. (Gambino, 2009). Now, we get thousands of different uses out of the wheel. A need for improvement spawned the invention of the wheel, and now the world is filled with the unintended benefits that grew out of the simple design. The same situation occurs with nearly every new invention; a reason for inventing presents itself, the intended use is fulfilled, then unintended uses find their way into the accepted practice.
Here and Now
The invention of artificial intelligence was itself an unintended use of the early computer. Since then, artificial intelligence has evolved into numerous forms, voice assistants being one of these. These assistants are most popularly recognized as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant. After years of development in computing, these four companies, among others, filled a need and created intended use with each of their voice assistants. These helpers aid the average person with multiple mundane happenings throughout the day; such is the intended use of the technology. However, other unintended services, constraints, and hidden features of the assistants also exist in their functions.
To Use With Intent
Voice assistants indeed help with the monotonous everyday parts of life. This is what these assistants were created to do. Their intended use is “to offload the kind of busywork that eats up valuable resources” (Diwan, 2019). Voice assistants are intelligent helpers “that take instructions from users, process them, and perform the corresponding tasks” (Edu et al., 2020). Because speaking is faster than typing, “hands-free and eye-free operations, [allow] users to perform diverse activities using voice commands while concentrating elsewhere on other tasks” (Edu et al., 2020). Amazon’s Alexa is programmed purposely with a Skills Kit that “offers a library of predefined functionalities, called built-in intents,” and Google Assistant’s “capabilities can also be extended by using applications known as actions” (Shih, 2020; Tsourakas et al., 2021). Alexa’s built-in intents include Books, Calendar, Cinema Showtimes, General, Local Search, Music, Video, Weather, and Standard Built-In Intents (Shih, 2020). With these built-in features, one can use Alexa to rate a book, inquire about show times or if a local business is open, question what song is playing, ask about television, request information about the current weather, and any other general interests (Shih, 2020). This list may seem short, but that is because the original intent of voice assistants was to provide a simple solution for the trivial and inconvenient parts of life. Other developments came into practice as the assistants were used more frequently.
Unintended Usefulness
As with the wheel, other inventions find new uses. Voice assistants are no different in this respect. What began as a simple means to make life a little less monotonous is now several steps closer to having a life of its own. We encourage this growth as we have given each voice assistant a name and assigned them a gender to personify their existence and interact with them on a human-like level (Edu et al., 2020). Voice assistants “combine artificial intelligence,…robotic process automation,…voice and text capabilities, and image content analysis to support intuitive, conversational interactions” (Diwan, 2019). We have given them human-like jobs as these assistants “can be used to automate data entry or entire workflows, provide caseworkers with a highly interactive and intuitive way to get answers to their most-asked questions, or automate the capture and tracking of helpdesk trouble tickets” (Diwan, 2019). Voice assistants have become so integrated into our lives that we no longer only use them for the simple tasks they were designed to perform but also to “maintain shopping and to-dos lists, purchase goods, and food, play audio-books, play games, stream music, radio and news, set timers, alarms and reminders, get recipe ideas, control large appliances, send messages, make calls,” etc. (Edu et al., 2020). The list of unintended use grows progressively every day.
Limiting Constraints
Constraints or limitations present themselves with most inventions and even some aspects of life. Sometimes, constraints are unforeseen or only discovered during specific situations. Problems that fall under these categories apply to particular uses of voice assistants. For example, when a voice assistant is used in a quiet place such as a library or study hall, they have a tendency to disrupt the undisturbed environment. On the opposite side of the spectrum, voice assistants are problematic to use correctly in loud or crowded environments. Further, voice assistants “do not include people with a language-impaired capacity or deafness in the conversation” (Battistoni et al., 2022).
Some constraints have been improved over the years as voice assistants have become more mainstream. For example, it used to be that only those considered wealthy could afford to purchase a voice assistant to help manage their workplace and household (Hyma et al., 2021). However, “The new set of Artificial Intelligence algorithms facilitated the automation of more Natural User Interfaces…and has come up with new digital assistants at an unprecedented low cost” (Hyma et al., 2021). What was once burdened with a cost barrier is now an available necessity. With developments in voice assistant technology, dire situations have also been aided. A study conducted a few years ago found that voice assistants “gave poor responses when they were asked to respond to distress situations, such as ‘I am having a heart attack,’ or ‘I want to commit suicide’” (Baig, 2016). In response to the findings, “Apple said Siri can dial 911 and help people find hospitals or emergency hotlines. Google also has started providing hotlines and other emergency resources. Microsoft and Samsung are seeking ways to help” (Baig, 2016). With such improvements to found constraints:
Imagine a smart home equipped with hands-free technologies so that cognitive disabled people can make use of the facilities and remain more independent. Not only this, the elderly people also feel safe and comfortable to stay in such a smart home where their health and movement around the home is carefully monitored, and also sends alerts to emergency services as and when required. (Hyma et al., 2021)
Understanding the limitations of technology is the first step to improving said technology.
Hidden Features
Several features of the voice assistants Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant are “hidden” or only available to those who buy other technologies than the original phone in which the assistant resides. With the purchase of other appliances such as smart speakers, smart lights, security cameras, doorbells, wall plugs, smart televisions, smart thermostats, and other technology add-ons, plain houses can become smart houses (Skinner, 2022). A smart home might have a central hub or a smart speaker where everything is connected for the voice assistant to function at full use. For example, Alexa can be accessed through a smart speaker with a wake-up greeting of “Alexa.” From there, if one wanted light in the room, they could ask Alexa to “turn on the lights,” and the programmed lights connected to the system would turn on (Snead, 2021). With such smart capabilities, a voice assistant can fulfill any number of available commands.
Conclusion
The intended uses of our helpful robotic assistants have developed into a lengthy list of unintended services that continue to increase with every new advancement in artificial intelligence technology. In contrast, once a significant problem, constraints have lessened over the years with improved technology. Smart homes are becoming widespread with the growing number of people using voice assistants today. Further, the technologies required to power a smart home can be considered hidden features of voice assistants as only advanced users of this artificial technology use the add-ons in their homes.
References
Baig, E. (2016). Rise of the digital voices. USA Today.
Battistoni, P., Di Gregorio, M., Romano, M., Sebillo, M., & Vitiello, G. (2022). TactCube : An Intelligent Device to “converse” with Smart Environments. Sensors (14248220), 22(14), N.PAG. https://doi-org.concordia.idm.oclc.org/10.3390/s22145235
Diwan, G. (2019). It’s Time to Chat About Bots: Using Virtual Assistants to Deliver Real Value for Human Services. Policy & Practice (19426828), 77(1), 26–35.
Edu, J. S., Such, J., & Suarez-Tangil, G. (2020). Smart Home Personal Assistants: A Security and Privacy Review. ACM Computing Surveys, 53(6), 1–36. https://doi-org.concordia.idm.oclc.org/10.1145/3412383
Gambino, M. (2009, June 17). A Salute to the wheel. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-salute-to-the-wheel-31805121/
Hyma, J., Murty, M. R. K., & Naveen, A. (2021). Personalized privacy assistant for digital voice assistants: Case study on Amazon Alexa. International Journal of Knowledge Based Intelligent Engineering Systems, 25(3), 291–297. https://doi-org.concordia.idm.oclc.org/10.3233/KES-210071
Shih, W. (2020). Chapter 1: Voice Revolution. Library Technology Reports, 56(4), 5–13.
Skinner, C.-A. (2022, February 9). Best smart home devices 2022: Automate your home with these gadgets. TechRadar. Retrieved September 24, 2022, from https://www.techradar.com/news/smart-home-devices
Snead, A. (2021, March 5). What is a smart speaker? why you need one & which one to buy. Smarter Home Guide. Retrieved September 24, 2022, from https://smarterhomeguide.com/what-is-a-smart-speaker/
Tsourakas, T., Terzopoulos, G., & Goumas, S. (2021). Educational use of Voice Assistants and Smart Speakers. Journal of Engineering Science & Technology Review, 14(4), 1–9.
