Ask HN: It's 2024, why are voice assistants still so buggy?

by samuelg123 on 4/13/2024, 10:04:14 PM with 11 comments
Still feels like 20% of the time I try to use Siri/Alexa, they hit one of these failure modes:

1. Fail to activate

2. Fail to respond (just keep listening forever)

3. Activate on the wrong device (talking to Siri on Phone, HomePod 2 rooms over responds)

4. Fail to access data they should have ("Who is speaking?" or "I'm having trouble...")

Thinking over it, I think voice assistants have the most bugs of any technology I use daily.

  • by smt88 on 4/13/2024, 10:12:52 PM

    It's because they're a cost center. They don't generate revenue for any big tech company. No one makes purchase decisions based on the voice assistant quality.

    I know a few people who lightly use them for timers or music, but almost no one goes deeper than that.

  • by 65 on 4/13/2024, 10:39:12 PM

    I built an Alexa skill at work. It's mostly a ton of edge cases and prompt variations you have to handle. Alexa also has a very short time out, something like 8 seconds, so your skill will time out very easily. Handling state is a whole other fiasco.

    Some things are out my control, like if Alexa picks up the skill invocation phrase or parses the response correctly.

    I suspect LLMs will help with this. Alexa is already integrating LLMs with their newer skill kits.

  • by diebeforei485 on 4/13/2024, 10:40:18 PM

    For #3 I recommend setting up your phone to respond to "Siri" but Homepod to respond to "Hey Siri".

  • by trav4225 on 4/13/2024, 10:58:56 PM

    Because everything is buggy these days. ;-)

  • by drivingmenuts on 4/13/2024, 11:45:54 PM

    1. Scottish accents ... 2. See #1.