Re: Like running face first into a wall...
"Voice assistants are last weeks news, but somehow the exact same technology that people decided not to give a damn about attached to the buzzword of "AI chatbot" is shiny and new."
The technology is not the same. Not that either is very impressive, but voice assistants never tried to engage in conversation. They listened to a free form sentence, and if it wasn't one of a few forms they recognized, they rejected it. Say anything unusual to Siri and it will put your transcript in a Google search box. Say anything unusual to Alexa and it will say "Hmmm. I don't know how to answer that". Say anything unusual to GPT and it will still try to answer your question, possibly with made up data or with a don't know response, but in the form of a properly structured response to your question.
It would have made sense for Amazon, the company that's invested the most in having a voice assistant that they talk a lot about, to get a chatbot so their box could pretend to engage in conversation with the users. Maybe that would have added enough novelty for people to use the devices, because it would stop acting like a malfunctioning command line. It would probably also have had many chances to advertise products, and that would probably appeal to a company like Amazon. They didn't bother.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
