
Amazon Lex – Conversational interfaces for your applications - osmode
https://aws.amazon.com/lex/
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sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072813](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072813)

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daveguy
I'm not sure what the benefit of this is over the alexa voice service api:

[https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-
vo...](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-voice-
service/content/avs-api-overview)

Does anyone know how this differs from alexa voice services? Does this allow
you to get away from the stilted "example phrases" of the alexa api and just
get a transcript? Judging from the inclusion of "intents" on the faq, it looks
like the "example phrase" interface will still be required:

[https://aws.amazon.com/lex/faqs/](https://aws.amazon.com/lex/faqs/)

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supergeek133
You need intents so whatever code is running Lex knows to do something.
Especially for a conversation string.

If you want text to speech or text to text? You'd make a polly utility, or do
something like "open dictate" and then just capture everything said after.

That being said the duration is limited too.

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voltagex_
Pricing:
[https://aws.amazon.com/lex/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/lex/pricing/)

>$0.004 per voice request, and $.00075 per text request.

I don't know what else to compare this to.

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pedalpete
I see how they went from Alexa to Lex, but does anybody else think the only
time they've ever heard of Lex is Lex Luther? Is it a great idea to name a
product aimed at developers which is boardering in the AI space after
Superman's nemesis?

I'm not going to forget it as a name. Thoughts?

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nickmorri
I'm thinking it's a play on A(lex)a andlexical analysis[1]. That may be where
Alexa got her name.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_analysis)

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OJFord
I assumed it was specifically from 'a lexer', an homonym.

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pmontra
Does it handle only English?

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alexmingoia
Yes, only US English. It's quite unfortunate that the most commonly spoken
language on earth - Mandarin - has such poor speech recognition. Using Google
Translate or Siri with Mandarin is almost useless. Hopefully people start
throwing more resources towards Mandarin speech technology.

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pmontra
It also leaves most of Europe uncovered. I can only use Lex for demos there,
no commercial services. People want to speak their own language and an English
only service will always lose against a native language one. Hopefully they'll
add other languages.

Did any non US English native speaker experience Amazon's language
recognition? I assume it understands your language easily, but does it?

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rrggrr
I won't participate and here is why... I want to delay my disintermediation
and assimilation a little longer. At some point, soon, Amazon will displace
commerce and the merchant class as we know it and I am not ready to let go
yet.

