How close can I get Amazon's Alexa to Black Mirror's Cookie

An exploration into the rise of voice assistants

Zara Siddique

github: groovychoons

email: zara@siddique.eu

1961 - IBM Shoebox

HearSay

Dragon

Harpy

Sphinx I/II

The Noughties

iPhone

Black Mirror

So, how can I do that?

Method 1 - Ask for all the things

• Alexa, set an alarm for 6am
• **wait till 6am**
• Alexa, play some Beethoven
• Alexa, turn on my heating
• Alexa, turn on my lights
• Alexa, turn on my coffee machine
• Alexa, turn on the toaster
• Alexa, show my calendar on the screen
• Alexa, what does my day look like?

Method 2 - Get Alexa to do everything in one go

• Alexa, set an alarm for 6am
• **wait till 6am**
• Alexa, play some Beethoven
• Alexa, turn on my heating
• Alexa, turn on my lights
• Alexa, turn on my coffee machine
• Alexa, turn on the toaster
• Alexa, show my calendar on the screen
• Alexa, what does my day look like?

Automated toasters?

Wait but where's all the code?

Method 3 - Write some code to do everything in one go

How close can I get Amazon's Alexa to Black Mirror's Cookie?

Is that a good thing?

Do we control the tech or does it control us?

At what point do we stop wanting tech to do things for us?

"We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.

Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little.

More than machinery we need humanity.

More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…."

- Charlie Chaplin, 1940

Any questions?

Zara Siddique

github: groovychoons

email: zara@siddique.eu

This talk: slides.com/zarasiddique/deck-1

Some cool links

Alexa Voice Service to turn on kettle and alarm:

https://www.hackster.io/xelfer/time-machine-a079fa

Flask Ask Tutorial

https://blog.craftworkz.co/flask-ask-a-tutorial-on-a-simple-and-easy-way-to-build-complex-alexa-skills-426a6b3ff8bc

https://archive.org/details/speech_2#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH_PcpzAIy4