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I'm curious to see the guardrails in place to prevent these issues. I'm sure there will be a slew of videos of weird interactions coming up with these and I do hope they will be harmless. But ultimately, this is the entrance of LLMs into homes with a microphone and control over your oven. 7/7

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LLMs are unwieldy, volatile and can pose a variety of dangers. In the smart home this can lead to easily accessible missinformation (think children) but also to chaotic control of your smart home (think thermometers). Giving an LLM control over appliances and thus physical impact on your home. 😱 6/7

Innovating Alexa amid the Rise of Large Language Models

Combining famously unreliable LLMs with the reliability of "what time is it?" or "turn on the kitchen lights" that Amazon has spent a decade on building turns out to be a key issue. I've written on these path dependencies in their development for LLMs in Alexa 👇5/7 www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

degruyter.com

Innovating Alexa amid the Rise of Large Language Models was published in Voice Assistants in Private Homes on page 365.

While LLMs are tending, this is an attack on their competitors Google and Apple, who have their won Gen AI struggles. However, if we look past the shiny press videos, it is to be expected that the integration of LLMs into Alexa will be fraught with issues of reliability of voice commands. 4/7

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(PDF) Frustration Free: How Alexa Orchestrates the Development of the Smart Home

Both home dwellers rely on Alexa for convenience and other Smart Home Manufacturers for access to the home. By making interaction 'Frustration Free' now through LLMs, Amazon markets a power move as a convenience and pleasance driver. I've written on this👇 3/7 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

researchgate.net

PDF | Niklas Strüver studies the sociotechnical relations that surround the voice assistant Alexa and the smart home it inhabits. In this, he identifies... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...

This is Amazon using Alexa as a platform to centralize market power for the smart home: "Shielding" users from the complexity of setting up an their smart home by hiding it behind LLMs and further gatekeeping other smart home manufacturers, as more informational flows go through Amazon. 2/7

A circular graphic describing the relationship between Amazon, Smart Home dwellers and original equipment manufacturers. Throughout the graphic, various sources of influence that extend from Amazon towards the original equipment manufacturers can be traced with the ultimate goal to shape the technologies in the smart home. The platform characteristics of Alexa result in most smart home devices at least having the necessary connection nodes to be compatible with Alexa, giving Amazon market power.

YouTube video by Amazon Alexa

Amazon announced a new #Alexa+ option involving new generative AI models to make Alexa seem relevant in times of #LLMs. Ultimately, this is a last ditch effort, considering the devices' company history. But it's a bit more than chasing a trend. Thread🧵👇 1/7 www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYbA...

youtube.com

Meet the new Alexa

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Moritz Hürtgen @moritzhuertgen.de · 09/02/2025

Fast ein Drittel der Zeit dieses 90-(!)-Minuten-Duells ging es um Asyl, Abschiebungen und Abweisungen. Null Respekt für alle, die hier die journalistische Verantwortung tragen. Was für eine Bankrotterklärung.

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Tim Hector @timmoritz.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

If you're by any chance interested in writing a review, feel free to drop me a line for a review copy... #VoiceAssistants #HumanMachineInteraction #PrivacyMatters #AIResearch #SurveillanceStudies #OpenAccess #DataEthics

Book cover of a paper-copy of "Voice Assistants in Private Homes", edited by Stephan Habscheid, Tim Hector, Dagmar Hoffmann, David Waldecker. Dark blue background, white letters, blue-filtered photo of a smart speaker next to a smartphone, which displays "Welcome Home"

Table of contents of the book in a photo of a paper copy (part 1)

Table of contents of the book in a photo of a paper copy

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Tim Hector @timmoritz.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Happy to announce the open-access volume "Voice Assistants in Private Homes. Media, Data and Language in Interaction and Discourse", edited by Stephan Habscheid, @dagmarhoffmann.bsky.social, David Waldecker and myself. You can download it here: www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...

Cover of the book "Voice Assistants in Private Homes. Media, Data and Language in Interaction and Discourse" (Stephan Habscheid, Tim Hector, Dagmar Hoffmann, David Waldecker, eds.), dark blue theme, white letters, blue-filtered picture of a voice assistant and a smartphone.

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I had so much fun doing the interviews and writing this article and just wanted to thank everyone again who participated and helped in any way. :) Hope you enjoy!

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In a qualitative close investigation we can see how #LLMs often do not work together with what users usually expect from Alexa. Programmers then need to find ways in dealing with this, but also with Amazon's #platform company policies.

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For this one I interviewed Developers that worked with Amazon's Alexa development infrastructure for a year. Accidentally this happend while ChatGPT shook up the voice assistant and Amazon was scrambling to redo Alexa. In true #STS spirit, we can see how old infrastructures can hamper innovation.

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My article is part of an excellent book on voice assistants edited by @timmoritz.bsky.social @dagmarhoffmann.bsky.social Stephan Habscheid & David Waldecker. You can find it open Access here: www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...

Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

New Publication just out! ✨Super happy to show the next article in my PhD to the world. It has the (very elegant and not clunky at all😅) title: "Innovating #Alexa amid the Rise of #LargeLanguageModels Sociotechnical Transitions in Algorithmic Development Practices" #OpenAccess Link👇Small🧵

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Arrived last week's Monday in Melbourne for a three month research stay @monashuniversity.bsky.social's Emerging Technology Lab led by Sarah Pink. Thrilled to be here!Temporarily in the gorgeous Victoria State Library while not at the ETL✨Thanks to @daadworldwide.bsky.social for help with funding.🙏

A victorian area library photographed from the second floor, showing various workplaces and bookshelves. The ceiling is made of milky glass and soft light warms the vast room.

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Unpaid Cat Maid @emeraldjaguar.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Daily reminder that the underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

Elon Musk does not want you to donate to Wikipedia, which is itself a good reason to donate, but the much better reason is that it's Wikipedia. Just donated again last night.

Tweet from Robert J. Berger: "Elon Musk has ordered everyone to stop donating to Wikipedia..... donate.wikimedia.org is the link if anyone feels like disobeying a direct order from a billionaire jerkwad."

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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

BREAKING: Amazon workers in NYC are going on strike right before Christmas—the company's busiest time. The first unionized Amazon warehouse is going to shut down in a historic walkout. Workers plan to hit the company where it hurts to win their first union contract. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1k...

youtube.com

How Amazon Ruined Christmas

YouTube video by More Perfect Union

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I'll only be able to attend online too, but better than nothing :)

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With a keynote by Jill Walker Rettberg @jilltxt.bsky.social ! The first day of the Winter School will be hybrid. Project group work will be taking place on site.

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The Winter School aims to explore questions centering on the implications of AI methods for new forms of sense-making & human-machine co-creation. Join us if you are interested in the intersections of AI methods, digital visual methodologies, visual social media, and platforms.

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Call for Participations: Mixed Methods Winter School on AI Methods » SFB 1187 – Medien der KooperationCall for Participations: Mixed Methods Winter School on AI Methods – SFB 1187 – Medien der Koopera...

Short notice registration🌿: Join us @University of Siegen for our Mixing Methods Winter School “AI Methods: From Probing to Prompting”. Registration is open until Dec 15 👉Programme & registration: u-si.de/FScqv #mixedmethods #AI #digitalmethods #probing #prompting

u-si.de

To finish with Benjamin: "The whole sphere of authenticity eludes technological-and of course tIot only technological-rel)roduction."

Maybe another display of tech companies' techno solutionism and a byproduct of improving AI infrastructure for different purposes. Cross subsidization and the development of tools in other fields than the actual (profitable) target field is a staple in platform companies after all.

I'm def. not an artist or art critic/scholar, but these LLM products (be it pictures, movies, songs, poetry) distinctly lack authenticity and what Benjamin calls "the Aura" of aesthetic authority.

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When he quotes "the amazing growth of our techniques, [...] make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. [...] We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts" he probably did not mean the "AI slop" we see now.

fabio iapaolo @fabio-iapaolo.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Has anyone written about modern AI "products" from a perspective of Walter Benjamin's Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction yet? If so, I would really like to read that. an accidental thread🧵

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With input from friends, I’ve made a starter pack of early-career researchers across digital geography, STS, and critical AI studies. It isn’t meant to be definitive or exhaustive (though somewhat arbitrary at this stage), so please feel free to comment your own or others’ names for inclusion!

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Thanks for putting this together! Would you mind including me? Working on voice assistants/smart home from an STS perspective :)

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More research like this is in the works/in publications processes right now, so stay tuned! :)

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The core argument follows the infrastructuralized power that the Alexa ecosystem affords Amazon in their interaction with third parties that want to develop for the voice assistant. It also investigates Amazon's vision for Alexa as the center of the Smart Home.

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“Frustration Free: How Alexa Orchestrates the Development of the Smart Home” deals with Amazon’s #Alexa and how they domesticate their third party #platform ecosystem #voiceassistants

The graphic shows a flowchart that outlines the production process for smart home devices that are supposed to integrate Alexa as a voice interface into their devices. It highlights Amazon's platform power while emphasising "orchestration" as the central idea of soft power exertion.

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