Shekhar Pokhrel

March 7, 2020

Writing of Engineering

Technical description

Have you ever wonder what it’s like to talk to a robot or how cool it will be to have a robot that does things for you? Well, I certainly have and I believe the days for this achievement aren’t that far. Recently at Christmas, my friend had gifted me an echo dot from amazon. I did my research on what it was and I found out that it’s a small device that’s controlled by Alexa. So what is Alexa? Alexa is an AI that uses text to speech or speech to text recognition to perform a wide variety of commands. Alexa is the brain behind millions of Alexa-enabled devices. Alexa has infinite abilities, so-called skills, developer creates these skills and inserts them into the software which allows Alexa to be smart. The purpose to do this was to make a way a person can talk to and get answers from the internet without having to touch your phone or any other devices. This frankly works, it can also be placed anywhere in the house, and the command,” Hey Alexa,” will indicate it to follow its skills. This mechanism has a brain of its own and this can be transferred into a device like an echo dot or even glasses.

In the previous month, Amazon has been working on the echo frames, it uses the same function on the echo dot,” Amazon echo frames are glasses with the power of Alexa built-in”(Chloe). In these frames there are tiny speakers and microphones built-in, it uses hands-free access to Alexa, it can play music, handle phone calls, and more. This device can be used for regular running or for old people who are having a hard time understanding their surroundings. Another development that recently happened is the Alexa doorbell “Alexa can now chat with a visitor who dings your ring video doorbell”(Carrie). In case you are not home then your Alexa can answer and talk with others, the increase in online ordering has increased the delivery service so with these features your delivery driver will be instructed what to do TThere can also be a smart house, A smart house is a house that had everything controlled by voice, no matter the light kitchen or TVs, everything can be controlled through Alexa.

Till now I have only stated the general effect of this device on our society but there is a bigger impact this has. Alexa has great potential in the AI world, I believe that it would eventually use the software to make a man-looking robot that would help humanity. Although there is no market for this right now in the future a man-looking robot will be beneficial. If we are able to achieve these factors then we wouldn’t have to risk human lives. For example, we can use this software that’s built-in a man-looking robot to act as a firefighter, this would limit the chances of a human losing its life.“Robots rarely make mistakes and are more precise than human workers” There would be a greater benefit of having a robot as your caretaker and this is all possible thru Alexa, it would be a good contribution to our society Long term of this mechanism sounds good but there are some problems concerning this idea.

Recently an employee at amazon stated,” having worked at Amazon, and having seen how they used people’s data, I knew I couldn’t trust them.” there is a risk of using this device because of privacy, however, isn’t everything we use today a treat to out privacy. There are technology threats every day and it’s quite impossible to dodge them, so as long as we live in a techno world we shouldn’t consider what happens to our privacy. Alexa should be the only target for privacy invasion every techno company should be spoked against this.

In conclusion, Alexa has the function of trying to connect with humans, registered skill allows this mechanism to form its function. Even though Alexa is just a small device today it has the potential of being a bigger and beneficial device to our society. The days aren’t far that we connect with robot’s and I believe that Alexa will be the bridge that will connect humans and robots.

Works Cited

“’Alexa, Are You Invading My Privacy?’ – the Dark Side of Our Voice Assistants.” TheGuardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Oct. 2019,www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/09/alexa-are-you-invading-my-privacy-the-dark-side-of-our-voice-assistants.Albanesius, Chloe. “Amazon’s Echo Lineup: What’s the Difference?” PCMAG, PCMag,30 Jan. 2021, www.pcmag.com/picks/amazons-echo-lineup-whats-the-difference.“Benefits of Robots.” RobotWorx, www.robots.com/articles/benefits-of-robots.Skinner, Carrie. “Your Amazon Alexa Might Finally Understand You Better.” TechRadar,TechRadar, 2 Mar. 2021,www.techradar.com/news/your-amazon-alexa-might-finally-understand-you-better.“Study Reveals Extent of Privacy Vulnerabilities with Amazon’s Alexa.” NC State News,4 Mar. 2021, news.ncsu.edu/2021/03/alexa-skill-vulnerabilities/.