
TV anchor says live on-air ‘Alexa, order me a dollhouse’ - danielharan
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/07/tv_anchor_says_alexa_buy_me_a_dollhouse_and_she_does/
======
wonko1
I don't really get the appeal of voice prompted ordering. Is there really a
big enough market of people for whom this is more than a novelty?

For many products, you want to do at least some research before ordering. For
products you order regularly, reordering is usually only a couple of
clicks/taps.

~~~
gkoberger
Well, Alexa will only actually buy something if you've already purchased it
(EDIT: Seems this isn't true anymore!). The use-case of this is something lie
"Alexa, buy more toilet paper" or "Alexa, we're out of salt." Saying it from
across the room while cooking is much easier than washing your hands, grabbing
your phone, loading the app, searching for the product, and hitting "buy".

It's definitely meant more as a replacement for a shopping list than it is a
way to, say, do your Christmas shopping.

~~~
linker3000
> Saying it from across the room while cooking is much easier than washing
> your hands, grabbing your phone, loading the app, searching for the product,
> and hitting "buy".

Is that a realistic scenario for the majority though?

Aren't most people going to either make a mental note and add it to the
shopping list later, or just wash/wipe hands and add a note to the list on the
fridge blotter/whiteboard etc.

It'll be a sad reflection on the evolution of cognitive thinking if the people
believe that they have to drop everything, clean up and reorder cornflour the
instant they run out.

> grabbing your phone, loading the app, searching for the product, and hitting
> "buy".

Considering that, as well as the other option of having a magical listening
tube in the house, living in a small English village, I have the 'luxury' of
grabbing my coat and walking about 400M to the local store, and apart from the
minor health benefit, I could also stretch the operation into a dog walking
session, bump into and talk to some friends on the way and get some fresh air.
There's also the local pub ([http://the-
quaffer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/murrell-arms-barnh...](http://the-
quaffer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/murrell-arms-barnham.html)). Alexa, pull me a
pint of London Pride...

~~~
Klathmon
Oh come on.

When used this way it's a minor extension of a shopping list that gets
automatically fulfilled.

Are you really gonna argue that it's a "sad reflection on the evolution of
cognitive thinking" to re-order something right when you realize you need it
rather than making a mental note, possibly forgetting it next time you are at
the store, the store maybe being out, and then having to lug this shit around
yourself?

It's a convince. I personally use it for cat litter all the time. I get it
from Amazon anyway cause they have the best price for it, and when I realize
it's running low I tell the Alexa to order more of it. And that sure as hell
beats the alternative of driving 20 minutes to the grocery store that has this
cat litter at some point in the future before I run out (not everyone lives
400m away from a store that sells everything)

It's not the end of the world.

~~~
keithpeter
No, I agree, it is not the end of the world.

However, it is one of those small changes that shift society's rules of
engagement very slightly. The teenagers I teach already order stuff from their
phones, and discover music &c entirely through online media. I live near the
centre of a large city in the UK and when I'm popping the 50m to the corner
shop for more salt or haldi, I have to dodge the swarms Deliveroo bicyclists.
Every takeway has the Just Eat sticker and all the radio cars have Uber on the
side as well as the local taxi company.

There is a shift in the details of daily living.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I read this stuff, read there is a shift in the details of daily living... and
for the life of me, I don't understand why this is a bad thing. It isn't like
we've not had grand shifts before.

The automobile. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Stoves and vacuum cleaners.
Television, radio. The wheel - but more importantly, the axle. Heck, hand
washing shifted some details of life.

It seems very natural for us to move forward and change this stuff. Is some of
it necessary? No, but that's just what humans do to an extent.

~~~
linker3000
> It isn't like we've not had grand shifts before.

This isn't anywhere near a grand shift - it's a clever commercial ploy to
increase profits for a narrow range of businesses.

> The automobile. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Stoves and vacuum cleaners.
> Television, radio. The wheel - but more importantly, the axle.

Sure, THEY _were_ grand shifts that improved health, sanitation, freed up
significant amounts of travel or labour time, brought education and
entertainment to the masses etc.

How do we classify Alex's contribution to society: "I can speak some words and
receive cat litter the next day".

OK, I jest - the AI behind Alexa will no doubt reap other benefits in time,
some may even be societal rather than commercial.

Don't get me wrong; I love gadgets and innovation - I work for an Enterprise
Class storage manufacturer and spend all day working with terabyte/petabyte-
scale disk and flash array setups, and stuff I can't even tell you about - but
let's have some perspective here!

------
smoyer
"Telly station CW-6 said the blunder ..."

I don't think it's a blunder to say (almost) any sentence ... we do still have
freedom of speech. To think that these viewers would expect that no one ever
utters the phrase again is ridiculous. Next they' expect there to be
legislation prohibiting certain words on any broadcast. An as more voice
controlled devices are created, there are bound to be conflicts.

If they'd written this article correctly, they'd have an auto-playing audio
clip that says "Alexa, order me a sandwich". A child named "Ok Google" will be
the next version of "Little Bobby Tables".

~~~
legohead
I recently got a Google Pixel and one of the first things it does is map your
voice to "OK Google", so not just anybody will trigger it. It has you say the
phrase several times.

My previous android phone didn't do this. The side effect is it doesn't catch
all my different inflections of "OK Google". When I first said it, I said it
in a super dull, boring voice. Now that's the only way I can trigger it.
However, I haven't looked into training it further.

~~~
shostack
Can you change this to something else? One of my big frustrations with
Google's assistant is that I have to say "Ok Google" which is long and clunky.
I'd rather just say "Google" or even rename it to something else. Voice input
should be fast and fluent. A four syllable activation phrase that doesn't
quite roll off the tongue is neither.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
You can on my 2014 Moto X. Mine is trained to "Listen up, phone!"

------
c3534l
I don't understand why people are blaming the news report for this instead of
Alexa.

~~~
Noseshine
Yeah, noticed that too. I think humans are playing _life_ like I used to play
chess or even Civilization: like an FPS (first person shooter) game. Don't
think more than a single step ahead, just shoot at the first thing that you
see!

They blame (and punish) the kid that "explodes" and not the bullies taunting
him/her for months. They blame the whistleblower. They blame the _reporter_
and the symptom. They blame the reaction and not the cause. They
overwhelmingly target the immediate thing/person that causes a disruption, and
what is most surprising to me - _even if the actual cause is apparent and not
hard to find_!!

~~~
ianai
That's been my takeaway as well. If I could talk to the next bullying victim
considering murder before the act I would point exactly this out. Society will
then label you the problem when your bullies were the actual problem.

------
kimburgess
Toyota ran and ad campaign in Sweden in 2015 that targeted Siri:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZBVTMrgFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZBVTMrgFA).

In their current state, voice assistants appear to be wide open for abuse. You
think auto-play ads on sites are bad now? Wait until they start auto-ordering
for you too.

~~~
Keverw
Oh wow. That's a neat ad, but kinda creepy... What if someone was already
using their phone hand free? Listening to Pandora to their cars BlueTooth? Or
even if they weren't using their phone at all - the fact that Siri is being
activated without them doing so could be a distraction.

Or maybe even stop their turn by turn navigation... So then they have to try
and drive while restarting it. Maybe they don't even remember the address, so
they have to open the app and go to recents or check their email(Not Sure if
Siri handles that part too).

I wonder if they'd be prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if
they did that same thing here in America. Hacking people's phones from the
radio it feels to me.

~~~
pluma
Navigation was actually the first problem that came to my mind too. There are
plenty of legitimate uses of _smartphones_ while driving. Airplane mode seems
like a solution to the wrong problem.

------
Tharkun
If your device is stupid enough to order things when some random person on TV
tells it to, then your device probably shouldn't be in people's homes.

~~~
zython
I wouldnt phrase it that way. But it is very badly designed that the voice
command purchasing is enabled by default, and should be changed that when set
up it has to be explicitly activated.

~~~
LorenPechtel
I think the real problem here is the lack of a confirmation. How it should
work: "Alexa, order me a dollhouse" Alexa: Do you want me to order an XYZ
dollhouse? "Yes". Alexa: Delivery is expected on xx/xx/xx. or <anything else>
Alexa: forgets about the dollhouse.

Last night my wife and I spent about half an hour talking and SIRI activated
twice--neither of us said anything to her and she doesn't even understand my
wife's accented English very well. Casual voice recognition simply isn't up to
the reliability to do automatic orders yet.

~~~
Tharkun
Even then it's pointless if someone on TV (or a casual visitor) can trigger
the order.

------
jasonkostempski
I've been waiting for this for years :) I figured it would be some shock jock
saying, "Ok Google, show me pictures of child porn" over the radio, causing
people to panic while driving and that would be the end of stupid, always-on,
voice commands.

~~~
LorenPechtel
Oh, that's evil!

Or, how about "Ok Google, how do I assassinate the president?"

------
dplgk
For the HN crowd, I'm surprised most comments here focus on ordering things
via voice. There's a much more disturbing lesson here and it's not far fetched
at all compared to most doomsday theories. Right now, Alexa et Al can control
your home, I'm sure it's one step away from summoning your Tesla. What comes
after that? Then all you need is an IoT exploit deployed and an implanted
Alexa time bomb that's triggered by a commonly uttered phrase. Without the
exploit, you could probably get pretty far with a mass broadcast, "Alexa, have
Tesla drive to Times Square"

------
jayjay71
30 Rock has a great scene making fun of this very scenario. It doesn't seem to
be readily available online, although it's on the episode ¡Qué Sorpresa! for
those interested. Then Forbes wrote an article explaining why this can never
happen.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2012/01/12/hed-
wh...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2012/01/12/hed-why-that-
scene-with-the-voice-activated-tv-in-30-rock-will-never-happen/#6c7f1ecf22f6)

Edit: It is worth mentioning that Alexa being outside the TV does make a
difference, as it's unlikely to have a directional microphone as would likely
be installed in the TV.

~~~
humanrebar
Dilbert from 1994:

[http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-04-24](http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-04-24)

------
unpythonic
Given that everything must go through shipping & handling which is typically
measured in days, what is the benefit to ordering immediately? Surely these
services could batch your requests through the day and push a confirmation
request to the buyer(s).

The risk of unintentional purchases seems much too high, and one doesn't lose
much convenience with a quick confirmation.

~~~
cstejerean
The benefit is not forgetting to order it later.

~~~
paganel
If you forget to order it later then you didn't really need that bad, money
saved.

~~~
Klathmon
So if I forget to get more laundry detergent when I notice it's out that means
I didn't need it anyway?

If I forget to put cat food on the grocery list, I guess they didn't need to
eat that much...

~~~
douche
The time to notice that you're running low on something is when you're
starting to run low on it, not when you've exhausted it, I would say.

I can understand that if one was living in a tiny apartment in the city, where
it is easy to go to the store and storage space is at a premium, the on-demand
model for getting your groceries and housewares might make sense. It would
make me anxious, though; I'm a stockpiler that gets itchy if I have less than
six months of canned goods and a freezer full of meat for the winter.

~~~
Klathmon
Youve never made a mental note to get more of something then forgot?

You've never written something down only to find the grocery store is out of
it? Or forgotten the list at home?

Maybe I'm just really forgetful, but I have. And since using the Alexa like
this, I don't. That's better.

I'm not blindly ordering everything through it, but some things definitely got
the model very well.

------
jcoffland
This could be mostly solved by allowing people to rename their digital
assistants.

~~~
colordrops
Good point. Are households with someone named Alexa completely unable to use
this product?

~~~
skuhn
No, there are two other name options available: Amazon and Echo. Echo is my
preferred one, since it's two syllables.

~~~
beagle3
Just don't watch any episode of "dollhouse" where the lead character played by
Eliza Dushku is called Echo

------
tombrossman
Serious question, what's preventing someone from exploiting this for profit?

For example, could you list a uniquely named item on Amazon (perhaps as a
Marketplace seller) and charge high restocking fees? Then instead of just
trolling people for a laugh, your business model would basically be collecting
restocking fees.

------
tetraodonpuffer
Couldn't the assistants (google, alexa, siri) be improved to do voice
fingerprinting for specific commands (like purchases, unlock the front door,
...) where only certain voices are allowed to execute them?

~~~
abiox
i believe so, but i wonder how many false-negatives would arise from
background/accompanying noise.

------
icameron
Do Alexa TV commercials wake up Alexa? Like the one that has "Alexa, call me
an Über"?

~~~
mcphage
Occasionally. Sometimes the echo flashes to indicate it heard it's name, but
not enough to respond to.

------
cooper12
If I remember correctly, doesn't Apple's Siri get trained to your voice so
other people don't activate it? It only seems appropriate for Amazon to make
sure only specific voices are associated with purchasing rights or else kids
will just be ordering anything. There really should have been some sort of
authentication method for sensitive things like this.

~~~
azinman2
I do often have guests over that use it. Having the option does sound good.

You can also already restrict purchases. Mine only adds to the shopping cart,
for example.

~~~
csours
Is that the default? It really seems like that should be the default..

------
StavrosK
Ah, censorship by robot, where we have to watch what we say in public for fear
of triggering people's assistants.

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khrm
This blunder seems to be mild in comparison to
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5p0gqCIEa8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5p0gqCIEa8)

------
746F7475
Can't wait when commercials just go: "Alexa, buy <whatever we are selling>".

~~~
sccxy
I wonder if it would qualify as computer crime if you do it on purpose.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Through the window: "Alexa, unlock the garage bay doors".

------
imsofuture
"ill-conceived TV spot"

Not sure that was the ill-conceived bit.

------
glitch003
I wonder if it's possible to create a TV commercial that says "Alexa, order me
a dollhouse" but not trigger the Amazon Echo in the room, by doing something
like playing ultrasound static at a louder volume than the "Alexa, order
me..." which would overload the Alexa microphone but would be too high of a
frequency for your ear to hear.

~~~
rsfern
It might be possible to come up with an analogy to adversarial images in
object recognition networks -- just take a clip of the speaker saying the
keyword ('Alexa', 'Ok google') and tweak it until it's no longer recognized by
the machine, but sounds normal to a human.

I doubt that Amazon will release their voice recognition models and parameters
though...

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tzs
These devices should be using multiple microphones so that they can tell where
sounds are coming from, and during setup they should be shown the location of
the TV and exclude any commands coming from there.

~~~
manmal
If it reacts to any voice, it's unusable for anyone with kids. Shopping really
has to be locked down to authorized people's voices. Is it even legal for kids
to order stuff on the internet?

~~~
kuschku
Good question!

The answer is, depending on country.

In Germany, all children of any ages can buy anything with previous approval
by the parents. From age 7 on products costing less than the monthly pocket
money cna be bought with approval after buying, from age 14 on all products.

So, as a result, you might have a 4 year old child ordering something online,
and have to honor the order (just as 4yos frequently are sent to fetch bread
from the neighbourhood bakery).

Obviously, cultural values affect this heavily — while in Germany and Japan
this is normal, in many areas of the US people below 16 are not expected to
act on their own, or buy things, so it can be obviously different.

~~~
chmod775
Though in Germany, products sold to children not meeting the criteria (i.e.
being bought without the approval of their parents) can be returned, since law
places the fault with the seller.

As well as the fact that any product bought online can be returned within 2
weeks without explanation.

So there's an incentive for the seller there to limit accidental purchases,
since those will likely cost the seller more than the disgruntled parent, who
at most has to pay for shipping the product back and forth.

------
ChuckMcM
I always chuckle at these, and yes voice _independent_ recognition is always
going to have this challenge. I tried a half dozen different "activation"
phrases for my Moto-X and they all triggered at odd times by non-activation
things (like the movies).

The really useful next step will be voice independent language recognition
with voice dependent command recognition. That and accent independent language
recognition. That is one of the, if not the, next billion dollar acquisition
by one of the big players.

------
JabavuAdams
Did any orders actually happen, or is this a fake outrage story?

~~~
echosmith
No, it asks for a confirmation at the very least, and a voice code as well.
Hacker news is filled with morons who know little to nothing, just like any
other sufficiently large online community.

------
nkkollaw
Is it just me, or the subheading is "Story on accidental order begets story on
accidental order begets accidental order"?

~~~
Kiro
Yes, it's a joke.

~~~
nkkollaw
Why, what's "begets“?

I don't get the joke :-/

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Think of it as a synonym for 'creates'. It's very archaic; the classic use is
biblical. There's a passage - I think early on - that goes something like
"Jacob begat Balthazar, Balthazar begat Abraham, ... etc." Goes on for 50 odd
names and essentially means "fathered" in that context.

~~~
nkkollaw
Ah, got it (sorry, English isn't my first language).

------
orblivion
So this is the new taboo? We have to watch what we say on tv and radio because
a lot of people decide to buy this product?

------
JoeAltmaier
Confused. Alexa doesn't order anything unless you do it manually. It just
creates a shopping list. So somebody say "Alexa, order me a dollhouse" and the
viewers' shopping lists got something scribbled on them. Nobody bought
anything.

------
mrob
This is a technical problem and can be solved by technical improvements. The
listening device needs enough microphones to locate the exact position of the
sound source. If it never moves then it's not a human and it should be
ignored.

------
mikerg87
This is so 2014. I remember when when Xbox users with Kinect had this happen.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27827545](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27827545)

------
synicalx
Just quietly, I'm looking forward to a new form of wardriving where you hang
out the window of your car with a mega phone and ask Alexa to buy expensive
jewellery or sex toys.

------
awqrre
"Alexa, order me a new tin foil hat"...

by the way, how does Alexa knows that you said Alexa without sending anything
to the cloud if it needs the cloud to decode any speech?

------
alxndr
Amazon is currently running a TV ad which has three people saying "Alexa..."
commands; I wonder why that ad isn't also causing false positives?

------
crooked-v
This makes me wonder how long until some musician or band does a Superbowl ad
with "Alexa/Siri/Cortana, play _____", followed by silence.

------
mherdeg
I wonder whether fewer people in the US will be naming their children "Alexa"
or "Siri" in the coming years.

~~~
_coldfire
Had this thought too. Mass broadcast will eventually learn and issues like
this avoided, but what about the life of everyone with those names and their
acquaintances?

Simply talking to or about them in your living room can now be a problem
ranging from mild annoyance to credit card purchase.

------
dlss
Sounds like someone needs to either (a) get a patch out, or (b) pass a law
before alexa-aware advertisements become a thing.

------
dkarapetyan
And now we enter the era of cybernetic capitalism and runaway purchasing
loops.

------
sogen
This reminded me of the Halloween III tv commercial...

------
phaed
Viral purchasing?

------
peterwwillis
What a time to be alive.

------
kahrkunne
Seems like a critical flaw in voice-control. Imagine a prankster driving
through town with speakers blasting "Alexa, order me 20 dollhouses".

