by Steve

史蒂夫(Steve)

为什么虚拟助手的前途一片光明 (Why the future is bright for Virtual Assistants)

I purchased my first mobile phone in the summer of 1999. I was 17 years old, growing up in a nondescript town in the Midlands of the United Kingdom. The population was less than 50,000.

我在1999年夏天购买了第一部手机。我17岁，在英国中部地区一个不起眼的小镇长大。 人口少于50,000。

For those of you wondering, it was a Sagem RC 922. It boasted enough memory for a whopping 100-contacts address book. It also had an external antenna. This phone would go on to be crushed by the juggernaut of Nokia.

对于那些想知道的人，它是Sagem RC922。它拥有足够的内存，可容纳多达100个联系人的通讯录。 它还有一个外部天线。 这款手机将继续被诺基亚的拥护者所粉碎。

My phone had no GPS. No colour screen. No WAP. No headphone jack.

我的手机没有GPS。 没有彩色屏幕。 没有WAP 。 没有耳机插Kong。

It offered text messages, voice calls, and a calculator.

它提供了短信，语音电话和计算器。

However, it came with a nice plastic card which promised £10 credit — if you scratched off the silver foil and input the numbers into the phone.

但是，它附带一张漂亮的塑料卡，可以保证提供10英镑的信用额度-如果您划掉了银箔纸，然后将数字输入到手机中。

It cost me just shy of £100. I had saved this up by working part-time in a factory during evenings while I studied at college.

花了我不到100英镑。 当我在大学学习的时候，我晚上在一家工厂做兼职工作来节省下来。

超越怀旧 (Beyond the nostalgia)

My cousin Thomas, a few years older than me; and my father were with me when I purchased the phone. We sat down in a coffee shop and unwrapped my new purchase. I powered it on and started inputting the code for the free credit.

我的堂兄托马斯(Thomas)比我大几岁； 我买电话的时候父亲和我在一起。 我们坐在咖啡店里，解开了我的新购货。 我打开电源并开始输入免费信用的代码。

“What is that?” they asked.

“ 那是什么？” 他们问过。

“My new mobile phone,” I replied.

我回答说：“我的新手机。”

My Dad simply looked baffled. “But… why have you bought a mobile phone?”

我爸爸看上去很困惑。 “但是……你为什么要买手机？”

I shrugged.

我耸了耸肩。

Then, quick as a flash, my cousin Thomas said: “I want one. Where did you get it?”

然后，我的堂兄托马斯一闪而过：“我想要一个。 你在哪里得到它？”

He marched off to the local store and came back two minutes later, triumphantly clutching his prize. My Dad, a blue-collar truck driver, was bewildered. Why had his son and nephew invested so much in something new?

他游行到当地商店，两分钟后回来，胜利地抓住了他的奖金。 蓝领卡车司机我的父亲感到困惑。 为什么他的儿子和侄子在新事物上投入了这么多钱？

这对虚拟助手意味着什么 (What this means for Virtual Assistants)

6 months ago my wife purchased me a gift. It was an Amazon Echo Dot. As someone who works all day in tech, she considered it a winner as a birthday gift.

6个月前，我妻子给我买了礼物。 这是一个亚马逊回声点。 作为一个全天从事科技工作的人，她认为这是生日礼物的赢家。

However, it remained boxed for nearly six months. Two weeks ago she became exasperated, and set it up in the kitchen. It was a novelty at first.

但是，它装箱了将近六个月。 两个星期前，她生气了，把它放在厨房里。 起初这是一个新颖的事物。

• “Alexa, why is Siri better?” [snark]

  “ Alexa，为什么Siri更好？” [蛇]

• “Alexa, do you have a boyfriend?” [British taboo humour]

  “ Alexa，你有男朋友吗？” [英国禁忌幽默]

Eventually, it was used for the same purpose every Echo Dot is used for:

最终，它被用于每个回声点用于以下目的的相同目的：

• “Alexa, set a reminder for 10 minutes when the oven fries are done”“ Alexa，炸薯条完成后设置10分钟的提醒时间”

Yesterday, I came downstairs and saw my four year-old son sitting in the kitchen. He often uses a stool to help himself to bowls of cereal from the cupboard.

昨天，我来到楼下，看到我四岁的儿子坐在厨房里。 他经常用凳子帮助自己从橱柜里拿出几碗麦片。

This morning, he had served himself a bowl of chocolately goodness and milk, and was listening to a song on the radio. Or so I thought. The song was Way Out by Beau Black. You might otherwise know it as the Miles from Tomorrow theme tune.

今天早晨，他为自己喝了一碗巧克力和牛奶，并在收音机里听一首歌。 还是我想。 这首歌是Beau Black的《 Way Out 》。 否则，您可能将其称为“ 明天的英里”主题曲 。

“I’ m a hero to the core. And I’ m going to explore. Way out!”

“我是核心人物。 我要去探索。 出路！”

I grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat next to him.

我抓起一碗麦片粥，坐在他旁边。

“How did you turn the radio on?”

“你是怎么打开收音机的？”

He munched thoughtfully.

他若有所思地咀嚼。

“I didn’t. It plays me songs.”

“我没有。 它会播放我的歌曲。”

I looked over. Sure enough, the Echo dot was the source of the Disney pop extravaganza.

我看了看。 果然，回声点是迪士尼流行音乐盛会的源头。

“It plays me songs”

“它播放我的歌曲”

Of course it plays songs. It is right there on the marketing literature. I knew it connects to dozens of services. It was supposed to work seamlessly.

当然会播放歌曲。 就在市场营销文献上。 我知道它可以连接许多服务。 它应该可以无缝工作。

However, as an adult I found it frustrating. Possibly because I was trying to frustrate it. For example:

但是，作为一个成年人，我感到沮丧。 可能是因为我试图挫败它。 例如：

“Alexa, turn on Spotify and play the Coding and Crushing It playlist and select Time by Hans Zimmer.”

“ Alexa，打开Spotify并播放“编码和粉碎它”播放列表，然后选择Hans Zimmer的Time。”

Hah! Look. It can’t. First gen product. Pfft.

哈哈！ 看。 不可以 第一代产品。 Pfft。

But to my son — who only started school 4 weeks ago — Alexa was his friend. Alexa played his songs. He continued to talk about Alexa glowingly over breakfast. I realised he had anthropomorphized it. Alexa was the equivalent of a pet. It was part of the home.

但是对于我的儿子-他是四个星期才才开始上学的-Alexa是他的朋友 。 Alexa播放了歌曲。 他继续在早餐时热烈谈论Alexa。 我意识到他已经拟人化了。 Alexa相当于一只宠物。 那是家的一部分。

And no one had shown him how to use it. He just shouted commands.

而且没有人向他展示如何使用它。 他只是大声喊叫。

Still eating, he said: “Alexa, please you play PJ Masks now!”

他还在吃东西，他说：“ Alexa，请您现在玩PJ面具！”

Sure enough, Alexa popped the PJ Masks theme tune onto Spotify. He was, in consumer terms, completely satisfied.

果然，Alexa将“ PJ面具”主题曲调弹出到Spotify上。 从消费者的角度来说，他完全满意。

All of this complemented the behaviours I’d previously seen in my daughters, Darcey (7) and Holly (5).

所有这些补充了我以前在女儿达西(7)和霍莉(5)中看到的行为。

Neither of them type search queries into Google. They default to voice-search for almost everything. Such as recently:

他们都不向Google输入搜索查询。 他们默认对几乎所有内容进行语音搜索。 例如最近：

“Google, when is Descendants 2 released?”

“ Google，《后裔2》何时发布？”

Children don’t display the preconceptions that adults have when interacting with Virtual Digital Assistants or A.I. bots.

当与虚拟数字助理或AI机器人进行交互时，儿童不会表现出成年人的先入之见。

They rarely get mad or blame the technology. It is just there. They have adopted voice-control in the same casual manner that I adopted mobile phone technology in the 1999.

他们很少生气或指责技术。 就在那儿 。 他们采用了语音控制，就像我在1999年采用移动电话技术一样随意。

That is, they have no real sense of requirement. I never got mad that my phone was lacking features. I was just super-satisfied to be communicating. My use case for a phone was limited to calling and texting. My children have a similar limited use case for Alexa.

也就是说，他们没有真正的要求感。 我从来没有生气过我的手机缺少功能。 我只是很满足于沟通。 我的电话用例仅限于通话和发短信。 我的孩子有一个类似的Alexa有限用例。

It is the norm. In their life, technology exists to serve content they request. That content may be a joke, or a song, a movie, a change in lighting, or the answer to a question.

这是规范。 在他们的生活中，存在着为他们所请求的内容提供服务的技术。 该内容可能是开玩笑，或者是歌曲，电影，灯光的变化或问题的答案。

Alexa and Google Assistant offer frictionless access to the content they want. They respond to an immediate thought — far quicker than typing.

Alexa和Google Assistant可以轻松访问他们想要的内容。 他们回应了一个立即的想法-比打字快得多。

As an adult, I am still conscious of saying “OK Google” in public to trigger the Assistant.

作为成年人，我仍然意识到要在公共场合说“ OK Google”来触发助手。

I own a pair of Bose QC-35 wireless headphones with the Google Assistant button, but I am loathe to use it. It does not feel normal in public. I feel like I am showing off.

我拥有一副带有Google Assistant按钮的Bose QC-35无线耳机，但是我不愿意使用它。 在公共场合感觉不正常。 我觉得我在炫耀。

However, my daughters have no problem shouting “OK Google, show me the nearest toy shop” into their phones anywhere they might be.

但是，我的女儿们可以在任何地方大声喊“ OK Google，给我看最近的玩具店”到他们的手机中。

为什么我的孩子从Alexa得到更好的答复？ (Why do my children get better responses from Alexa?)

While adults may often attempt to trick the algorithm, children already speak in simple sentence structures. These lend themselves well to the user input required for an A.I.

尽管成人可能经常尝试欺骗算法，但孩子们已经 用简单的句子结构说话。 这些很适合AI所需的用户输入

It is frictionless because they are pure in their intentions and simple in their requests. The barrier to satisfaction is far lower for a child using voice activation. Their expectation of Alexa is zero — other than the exception that it is always available. Children are the best demographic for proving the voice-controlled home.

这是无摩擦的，因为他们的意图纯正，要求简单。 对于使用语音激活的孩子来说，满足的障碍要低得多。 他们对Alexa的期望为零-除了始终可用的例外。 儿童是证明语音控制房屋的最佳人群。

The true test of home automation is not: “Will the temperature go up 10 minutes before I get home?” That’s not too difficult to program using a combination of a smartphone, compatible hubs and IFTTT.

家庭自动化的真正考验不是：“回家之前10分钟温度会升高吗？” 结合使用智能手机，兼容的集线器和IFTTT进行编程并不难。

The true test is “Can a child dim their Hue lightbulbs to reflect bed time? Can a child request a Winnie the Pooh book-on-tape via a smart speaker?”

真正的考验是“孩子可以调暗Hue灯泡以反映上床时间吗？ 孩子可以通过智能扬声器请求小熊维尼磁带录音吗？”

I believe we have passed that point in 2017. Children are the future consumers of this technology. For this reason, I believe the market valuations are pessimistic.

我相信我们已经在2017年突破了这一点。儿童是这项技术的未来消费者。 因此，我认为市场估值是悲观的。

The target demographic for the widespread adoption of voice-control is not the Millennial generation. Instead, it is those born between 2010–2020. They are the ones growing up in a voice-controlled home, and will expect this technology as a standard.

语音控制被广泛采用的目标人群不是千禧一代。 取而代之的是出生于2010年至2020年之间的人群。 他们是在语音控制的家庭中成长的人，并且期望这项技术成为标准。

Voice A.I. will be ubiquitous in the next two decades. I have no doubt.

语音AI在未来二十年将无处不在。 我毫不怀疑。

未来该何去何从？ (What does the future hold?)

I am all-in on Amazon winning this race. This is because vendor lock-in is crucial. If the barrier to switching is high, then once you have bought a home speaker or Hub, you are extremely unlikely to switch platforms.

我全力以赴地赢得这场比赛的亚马逊。 这是因为供应商锁定至关重要。 如果切换的障碍很高，那么一旦您购买了家用扬声器或集线器，就极不可能切换平台。

At the beginning of 2016, there were just over 130 Alexa apps, or “skills”. By year-end, that number had grown to over 5,000. Today, there are over 7,000. Application growth was over 500% during the second half of 2016.

在2016年初， 只有130多个Alexa应用或“技能”。 到年底，这个数字已经增加到5,000多个 。 今天，有超过7,000个。 2016年下半年，应用程序增长超过500％。

For anyone trailing Google, Apple and Amazon, the future looks bleak in terms of native adoption.

对于任何落后于Google，Apple和Amazon的人来说，就本机采用而言，未来看起来都是黯淡的。

The best chance for rival voice assistant providers may be to provide a display/voice interface layer on top of a shared processing layer. However, the strength of an A.I. service lies in superior data processing ability. This means it is unlikely that such a collaborative development will happen.

竞争对手语音助手提供商的最佳机会可能是在共享处理层之上提供显示/语音接口层。 但是，AI服务的优势在于出色的数据处理能力。 这意味着这种合作发展不太可能发生。

Instead, we will see a fragmented marketplace emerge. It will be a market where you are forced into using default A.I. providers depending on the hardware purchase. This will lead to consumer friction and third party solutions to “remove” incumbent solutions.

相反，我们将看到一个分散的市场。 在这个市场中，根据硬件购买情况，您不得不使用默认的AI提供程序。 这将导致消费者的摩擦，并导致第三方解决方案“删除”现有解决方案。

Personally, I feel that Amazon benefit from being a commerce company while Google still suffers a ‘Big Brother’ reputation.

就我个人而言，我觉得亚马逊可以从一家商业公司中受益，而谷歌仍然享有“老大哥”的美誉。

That branding hurdle is one that Google required Amazon to break down. If Google were first to market, I am certain voice-controlled home automation would have died on launch. Amazon were the route-provers, or the minesweepers.

谷歌要求亚马逊打破这一品牌障碍。 如果Google率先进入市场，我相信语音控制的家庭自动化系统将在发布时就死掉。 亚马逊是路线证明者或扫雷者。

移动反向 (Mobile reversal)

Curiously, this branding issue is reversed on mobile devices. Google Assistant is crushing Android competitors such as Alexa and Bixby. According to Ovum Marketing Research:

奇怪的是，这种品牌问题在移动设备上是相反的。 Google Assistant正在压制Alexa和Bixby等Android竞争对手。 根据Ovum市场研究：

Google Assistant will dominate the voice artificial intelligence (AI)-capable device market with 23.3% market share, followed by Samsung’s Bixby (at 14.5%), Apple’s Siri (13.1%), Amazon’s Alexa (3.9%) and Microsoft’s Cortana (2.3%)

Google Assistant将以23.3％的市场份额占领语音人工智能(AI)设备市场 ，其次是三星的Bixby(14.5％)， 苹果的Siri (13.1％)， 亚马逊的Alexa (3.9％)和微软的Cortana(2.3％ )

TechCrunch recently reported on a VoiceLabs report:

TechCrunch最近在VoiceLabs报告中报告了：

“‘Therefore, while not a winner-take-all market, in 2017 VoiceLabs predicts it will be a winner-take-entire-household market,’ the report states. ‘This puts pressure on the hardware providers to distribute devices quickly.’”

报告称：“因此，尽管不是赢家通吃的市场，但VoiceLabs预测，2017年将是一个赢家通吃的全民市场。” “这给硬件提供商带来了Swift分发设备的压力。””

Amazon is undoubtedly supported by its vast experience in selling consumer electronics. This gives it an edge in distribution channels.

亚马逊在销售消费电子产品方面的丰富经验无疑为其提供了支持。 这使其在分销渠道中占有优势。

Meanwhile, it has also made it easy for developers to build Alexa voice applications for its Echo family of devices. It has invested in tools for application development.

同时，这也使开发人员可以轻松地为其Echo系列设备构建Alexa语音应用程序。 它已经投资了用于应用程序开发的工具。

However, my last thought is that Amazon has made significant progress in capturing younger content consumers into the Amazon ecosystem. This is through the use of the Kindle Fire Kids, which seems ripe for an Alexa-inspired revolution.

但是，我最后的想法是，亚马逊在吸引年轻内容消费者进入亚马逊生态系统方面取得了重大进展。 这是通过使用Kindle Fire Kids来实现的，它对于Alexa启发的革命来说似乎已经成熟。

“Alexa, help me understand long multiplication.”

“ Alexa，帮我理解长乘法。”

“Opening Khan Academy, long multiplication, video playing in 3, 2, 1…”

“开放可汗学院，长时间乘法，以3、2、1…播放视频……”

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-number-1-reason-virtual-assistants-will-go-completely-viral-c4a8bb20e262/