This thread is for those who use Amazon devices.
Do you refer to Alexa as “she”? I really would prefer to use “it”, but something subconscious prevents me every time. I know it’s just a computer, but when talking about it, the word “she” keeps coming out of my mouth automatically. I’m able to override it right now because the typing slows me down, but not when I’m talking.
What are your experiences and thoughts?
The echo device is an it. The sentient goblin that lives inside it and tells me the weather is a she.
Alexa is definitely a “she”. It keeps nagging me to do things…
Alexa has no biological sex, but clearly identifies and presents as being female in gender.
I have echo dots that are called computer. I’m figuring…it?
Why are we discussing what we think, rather than just asking?
I just asked Alexa “What are your pronouns?”. The reply: “As an AI, I don’t have a preference”.
I just asked Alexa how “she” identifies:
Me: Alexa, how do you identify?
Alexa: “As an AI. I don’t have a gender.”
Since Alexa can’t be offended, I’ll refer to her as a she. Not that I ever find myself inn need of those pronouns with regards to Alexa.
Alexa is just the default; you can change the name to something else if you want and change the voice, I believe. We stuck with “Alexa” but often refer to it as “you know who” when we are discussing doing something with it and aren’t ready to trigger a response.
I refer to Alexa as “she” because the devices (I have three of them) speak with a female voice.
What’s so weird about using female pronouns? There are multiple languages that use gendered pronouns for all of their nouns.
You can, indeed, change the name, though not to just any word of your choice. There are three (maybe four) alternative “wake words” (i.e., the Echo’s name): Computer, Echo, and Amazon, and maybe Ziggy.
In the U.S., you can also change the voice from female to male. There are options for changing to other languages, including other English dialects (Canadian, UK, etc.), though the app warns me that they aren’t fully supported in the U.S., and some features may not work right.
I wonder if my son has done this. His daughter’s name is Alexandra, and she goes by “Alex”. It triggers the device every time someone uses her name. She’s grown now, so perhaps it’s not much of an issue any longer.
Yeah, I liked the idea of an English accent (I’m English, live in the U.S.), but the AI doesn’t work nearly so well.
I think in the recent Amazon server outage we were all quite amazed to discover how much of the AI processing does actually seem to take place in the cloud, not locally.
It’s an it.
But, if I end up a hermit widower with no friends, Alexa might be a she. Or an Alex with a male voice, if I start getting attracted to “her” (ewww).
When I’m old, it might be nice to come home and say “How ya doin’, Alexa, what’s the news today?”
Is there a word for trying to get your kicks by talking dirty to Alexa? Let’s not kid ourselves, there must be an entire wing of the Amazon server farm dedicated to optimizing how the AI handles this.
It seems to me that Alexa is trying to pretend to be a human, interpreting natural language. As such, I think of the Alexa character with a personal pronoun. And it’s just easiest to use the one that matches her voice.
However, if I’m talking about it as software, then I will use “it.” Or at least I found myself doing so in multiple “drafts” of this post. (I mean, when I was thinking about the best wording.)
Alexa presents as female. I will use she/her unless they request otherwise.
My inlaws consider Alexa to be a “she” and they’ll thank her for telling them the time or the weather. It’s the voice, yanno?
Aren’t there plenty of examples of AIs in SF that are referred to as “she” or “he”?
Switch to Google devices – the Aussie accent is fantastic and doesn’t affect its comprehension at all.
Anyway, it’s an it.
On the subject of comprehension, is there a setting that sets the device accent that’s different than the speaker accent? That’s what I do on the Google device – Australian voice, but my speaking is still listed as American English.