by Steve

史蒂夫(Steve)

為什么虛擬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年夏天購買了第一部手機。我17歲，在英國中部地區一個不起眼的小鎮長大。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.

對于那些想知道的人，它是Sagem RC922。它擁有足夠的內存，可容納多達100個聯系人的通訊錄。它還有一個外部天線。這款手機將繼續被諾基亞的擁護者所粉碎。

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

我的手機沒有GPS。沒有彩色屏幕。沒有WAP 。沒有耳機插Kong。

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

它提供了短信，語音電話和計算器。

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，它附帶一張漂亮的塑料卡，可以保證提供10英鎊的信用額度-如果您劃掉了銀箔紙，然后將數字輸入到手機中。

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英鎊。當我在大學學習的時候，我晚上在一家工廠做兼職工作來節省下來。

超越懷舊 (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.

我的堂兄托馬斯(Thomas)比我大幾歲；我買電話的時候父親和我在一起。我們坐在咖啡店里，解開了我的新購貨。我打開電源并開始輸入免費信用的代碼。

“What is that?” they asked.

“ 那是什么？” 他們問過。

“My new mobile phone,” I replied.

我回答說：“我的新手機。”

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

我爸爸看上去很困惑。 “但是……你為什么要買手機？”

I shrugged.

我聳了聳肩。

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

然后，我的堂兄托馬斯一閃而過：“我想要一個。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?

他游行到當地商店，兩分鐘后回來，勝利地抓住了他的獎金。藍領卡車司機我的父親感到困惑。 為什么他的兒子和侄子在新事物上投入了這么多錢？

這對虛擬助手意味著什么 (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個月前，我妻子給我買了禮物。這是一個亞馬遜回聲點。作為一個全天從事科技工作的人，她認為這是生日禮物的贏家。

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，它裝箱了將近六個月。兩個星期前，她生氣了，把它放在廚房里。起初這是一個新穎的事物。

“Alexa, why is Siri better?” [snark]
“ Alexa，為什么Siri更好？” [蛇]
“Alexa, do you have a boyfriend?” [British taboo humour]
“ Alexa，你有男朋友嗎？” [英國禁忌幽默]

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

最終，它被用于每個回聲點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，炸薯條完成后設置10分鐘的提醒時間”

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，我來到樓下，看到我四歲的兒子坐在廚房里。他經常用凳子幫助自己從櫥柜里拿出幾碗麥片。

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，他為自己喝了一碗巧克力和牛奶，并在收音機里聽一首歌。還是我想。這首歌是Beau Black的《 Way Out 》。否則，您可能將其稱為“ 明天的英里”主題曲。

“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.

我抓起一碗麥片粥，坐在他旁邊。

“How did you turn the radio on?”

“你是怎么打開收音機的？”

He munched thoughtfully.

他若有所思地咀嚼。

“I didn’t. It plays me songs.”

“我沒有。它會播放我的歌曲。”

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

我看了看。果然，回聲點是迪士尼流行音樂盛會的源頭。

“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.

當然會播放歌曲。就在市場營銷文獻上。我知道它可以連接許多服務。它應該可以無縫工作。

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

但是，作為一個成年人，我感到沮喪。可能是因為我試圖挫敗它。例如：

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

“ Alexa，打開Spotify并播放“編碼和粉碎它”播放列表，然后選擇Hans Zimmer的Time。”

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

哈哈！看。不可以第一代產品。 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.

但是對于我的兒子-他是四個星期才才開始上學的-Alexa是他的朋友。 Alexa播放了歌曲。他繼續在早餐時熱烈談論Alexa。我意識到他已經擬人化了。 Alexa相當于一只寵物。那是家的一部分。

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

而且沒有人向他展示如何使用它。他只是大聲喊叫。

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

他還在吃東西，他說：“ Alexa，請您現在玩PJ面具！”

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

果然，Alexa將“ PJ面具”主題曲調彈出到Spotify上。從消費者的角度來說，他完全滿意。

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

所有這些補充了我以前在女兒達西(7)和霍莉(5)中看到的行為。

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

他們都不向Google輸入搜索查詢。他們默認對幾乎所有內容進行語音搜索。例如最近：

“Google, when is Descendants 2 released?”

“ Google，《后裔2》何時發布？”

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

當與虛擬數字助理或AI機器人進行交互時，兒童不會表現出成年人的先入之見。

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.

他們很少生氣或指責技術。就在那兒 。他們采用了語音控制，就像我在1999年采用移動電話技術一樣隨意。

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.

也就是說，他們沒有真正的要求感。我從來沒有生氣過我的手機缺少功能。我只是很滿足于溝通。我的電話用例僅限于通話和發短信。我的孩子有一個類似的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.

這是規范。在他們的生活中，存在著為他們所請求的內容提供服務的技術。該內容可能是開玩笑，或者是歌曲，電影，燈光的變化或問題的答案。

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可以輕松訪問他們想要的內容。他們回應了一個立即的想法-比打字快得多。

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

作為成年人，我仍然意識到要在公共場合說“ OK Google”來觸發助手。

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.

我擁有一副帶有Google Assistant按鈕的Bose QC-35無線耳機，但是我不愿意使用它。在公共場合感覺不正常。我覺得我在炫耀。

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

但是，我的女兒們可以在任何地方大聲喊“ OK Google，給我看最近的玩具店”到他們的手機中。

為什么我的孩子從Alexa得到更好的答復？ (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.

盡管成人可能經常嘗試欺騙算法，但孩子們已經用簡單的句子結構說話。這些很適合AI所需的用戶輸入

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.

這是無摩擦的，因為他們的意圖純正，要求簡單。對于使用語音激活的孩子來說，滿足的障礙要低得多。他們對Alexa的期望為零-除了始終可用的例外。兒童是證明語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.

家庭自動化的真正考驗不是：“回家之前10分鐘溫度會升高嗎？” 結合使用智能手機，兼容的集線器和IFTTT進行編程并不難。

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?”

真正的考驗是“孩子可以調暗Hue燈泡以反映上床時間嗎？孩子可以通過智能揚聲器請求小熊維尼磁帶錄音嗎？”

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.

我相信我們已經在2017年突破了這一點。兒童是這項技術的未來消費者。因此，我認為市場估值是悲觀的。

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.

語音控制被廣泛采用的目標人群不是千禧一代。取而代之的是出生于2010年至2020年之間的人群。他們是在語音控制的家庭中成長的人，并且期望這項技術成為標準。

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

語音AI在未來二十年將無處不在。我毫不懷疑。

未來該何去何從？ (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.

我全力以赴地贏得這場比賽的亞馬遜。這是因為供應商鎖定至關重要。如果切換的障礙很高，那么一旦您購買了家用揚聲器或集線器，就極不可能切換平臺。

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多個Alexa應用或“技能”。到年底，這個數字已經增加到5,000多個。今天，有超過7,000個。 2016年下半年，應用程序增長超過500％。

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

對于任何落后于Google，Apple和Amazon的人來說，就本機采用而言，未來看起來都是黯淡的。

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.

競爭對手語音助手提供商的最佳機會可能是在共享處理層之上提供顯示/語音接口層。但是，AI服務的優勢在于出色的數據處理能力。這意味著這種合作發展不太可能發生。

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，我們將看到一個分散的市場。在這個市場中，根據硬件購買情況，您不得不使用默認的AI提供程序。這將導致消費者的摩擦，并導致第三方解決方案“刪除”現有解決方案。

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

就我個人而言，我覺得亞馬遜可以從一家商業公司中受益，而谷歌仍然享有“老大哥”的美譽。

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.

谷歌要求亞馬遜打破這一品牌障礙。如果Google率先進入市場，我相信語音控制的家庭自動化系統將在發布時就死掉。亞馬遜是路線證明者或掃雷者。

移動反向 (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，這種品牌問題在移動設備上是相反的。 Google Assistant正在壓制Alexa和Bixby等Android競爭對手。根據Ovum市場研究：

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將以23.3％的市場份額占領語音人工智能(AI)設備市場，其次是三星的Bixby(14.5％)，蘋果的Siri (13.1％)，亞馬遜的Alexa (3.9％)和微軟的Cortana(2.3％ )

TechCrunch recently reported on a VoiceLabs report:

TechCrunch最近在VoiceLabs報告中報告了：

“‘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.’”

報告稱：“因此，盡管不是贏家通吃的市場，但VoiceLabs預測，2017年將是一個贏家通吃的全民市場。” “這給硬件提供商帶來了Swift分發設備的壓力。””

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

亞馬遜在銷售消費電子產品方面的豐富經驗無疑為其提供了支持。這使其在分銷渠道中占有優勢。

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.

同時，這也使開發人員可以輕松地為其Echo系列設備構建Alexa語音應用程序。它已經投資了用于應用程序開發的工具。

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，亞馬遜在吸引年輕內容消費者進入亞馬遜生態系統方面取得了重大進展。這是通過使用Kindle Fire Kids來實現的，它對于Alexa啟發的革命來說似乎已經成熟。

“Alexa, help me understand long multiplication.”

“ Alexa，幫我理解長乘法。”

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

“開放可汗學院，長時間乘法，以3、2、1…播放視頻……”