Uncanny Valley | WIRED21 Sep 2023

Alexa Gets an AI Makeover

Alexa was due for an upgrade, and now it has gotten one. This week, Amazon held its annual media event where it debuted a slate of new hardware, software, and services. The company reserved the spot at center stage for Alexa, the voice assistant powering all of Amazon’s smart home ambitions. Researchers at the company have given Alexa a technological upgrade that enables it to be more competitive in the ChatGPT era. Alexa can now speak more naturally, hold a conversation without as many awkward interactions, and even make its responses sound more emotionally nuanced. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Will Knight joins us to talk about how Alexa is becoming more agile as a conversationalist. Will spoke to Amazon executives about their machine intelligence work, their training models, and how the company is riding the wave of excitement around generative artificial intelligence. Show Notes: Read Will’s report on Alexa’s latest upgrade. Read our roundup of everything Amazon announced at Wednesday’s media event. Recommendations: Will recommends Auto-GPT, a tool that turns ChatGPT an autonomous agent that manages all the boring parts of your life. Mike recommends the book No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating by Alicia Kennedy. Lauren recommends the episode of WIRED’s Have a Nice Future Podcast where journalist Paul Tough talks about college in the US and the future of higher education. Will Knight can be found on Twitter @willknight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(475)

Inside the Network of Anonymous Men Destroying Young Women's Lives

Last year, Maddie Kowalski was a regular sophomore attending the University of Florida. That is until one day, a series of anonymous accounts on X started proliferating explicit, non-consensual videos...

24 Sep 19min

Patti Harrison Grew Up With Tech As Her North Star. Not Anymore.

Comedian Patti Harrison hates social media. She wishes she didn't have to use it at all. To her, the internet is a slop factory. One of her biggest concerns: intentionally created confusion meant to d...

22 Sep 34min

What Would the AI Apocalypse Look Like? We Went Looking for Answers

The debate of whether AI can kill us has been everywhere lately, but how exactly would an actual AI catastrophe look like? This week, the team went looking for answers and found the three real-world s...

17 Sep 37min

If the US Collapses Soon, Don’t Blame Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, Station Eleven, turned her into something of a pandemic prophet. This month, she’s releasing her newest novel, Exit Party, which imagines two possible American futu...

15 Sep 34min

So, Can AI Kill Us All?; Apple’s Foldable iPhone; the Census’ Bad Data Problem

This week, an AI researcher's resignation from Anthropic went viral on social media after he claimed there's a real chance AI could wipe out humanity by decade's end. WIRED’s Will Knight joins Brian a...

10 Sep 30min

MS NOW Wants to Turn Its Viewers Into a Fandom

When Rebecca Kutler accepted the job as president of cable news channel MS Now, formerly known as MSNBC, she knew what she was getting into. The top 3 cable news channel, MS was about to go into a mas...

9 Sep 29min

How Flock Cameras Actually Work; George Santos' Kalshi Ban; AI Rogue "Civilizations"

We're back! This week, the team discusses the two incidents that have been making noise in prediction markets: George Santos getting lifetime ban from Kalshi, and a Google engineer's Polymarket inside...

3 Sep 32min

LegalEagle, the Internet’s Favorite Lawyer, Makes Sense of ‘Multiple Watergates per Week’ (Re-air)

Devin Stone, the lawyer better known as LegalEagle on YouTube, has been breaking down legal cases - and assessing the accuracy of legal procedurals in film and television -- for years. He talks to Kat...

1 Sep 40min