Inside The Alexa Prize
© ORI TOOR
Amazon is in a pitched battle with its rivals to bring truly conversational AI into our homes. So the company is staging a contest—a mad dash toward an outlandish goal: Cook up a bot capable of small talk
The first interactor—a muscular man in his fifties with a shaved head and a black V-neck sweater—walks into a conference room and sits in a low-slung blue armchair before a phalanx of video cameras and studio lights. He’s brightly lit. The rest of the room is totally dark. He gazes at a black, hockey-puck-shaped object—an Amazon Echo—on a small table in front of him. “Alexa,” he says, “let’s chat.”
“Good morning, my friend,” a female voice replies with synthetic agreeability, a purplish ring of light pulsing atop the Echo. “Or is it afternoon? I’m not quite sure.”
“It’s morning,” the man replies.
“Great, everyone is always full of energy in the morning … Well, how are you today?”
“I’m great, how are you?”