Voice assistants speak to a brave new world

The voice assistant in your ph一个 is helpful—sometimes. 不时地, she can locate the nearest gas station, 和 sometimes she can even tell you a joke. 但当涉及到完整解决方案的人工智能时，她就不适合了. Unfortunately for many consumers, when they hear the words “voice assistant,” they imagine just that: a solution for the deluge of data, 任命, 和 interests that they have to revisit day in 和 day out.

当美光公司高级消费者市场经理Harsha Nagaraju设想他完美的语音助手时, he immediately thinks of JARVIS™ from Marvel’s Iron Man™, who is otherwise known as Just A Rather Very Intelligent System.

“I want it to basically run the entire house, literally,Nagaraju说. “And I want it to have information for me at my fingertips. If I am using a voice assistant at work, 我在开会, 和 I want to pull up a spreadsheet or I want to run some numbers, 我希望我能说, ‘嘿, how were the sales for last week, 和 how did they do compared to last year at this time?’ And I want it to compute everything 和 give it to me right there.”

Voice assistants are obviously not at this level quite yet, 但Nagaraju的梦想助手离人们对语音助手的期望并不远. 与强大的, 有效的记忆, 无处不在的智能设备将能够做JARVIS能做的几乎所有事情，并真正为它们的主人节省他们经常耗尽的时间.

The Appeal of Voice Assistants

Voice assistants made their debut, for most users anyway, on cellph一个s. With a quick press of a button, a spritely female voice was ready for, 好吧, mostly voice-activated web 搜索es or placing calls. 尽管它有缺点，但许多人对他们的新助手的前景感到非常高兴.

“They see this trend where your voice becomes a new interface, where it gives you a h和s-free experience 和 takes you away from the screen,Nagaraju说. “所以我认为这就是为什么大多数人对这些语音助手如此兴奋的原因.”

随着这些助手变得越来越有用，以及越来越多的物联网(IoT)设备进入市场，开发人员希望将类似的智能带入家庭, 消费者可以在家里和家人一起使用免提用户界面吗.

“扬声器只是进入房子的一个入口，因为它很便宜，”Nagaraju说. “但扬声器所做的是把同样的互动从你的移动设备带到家里的设备上."

The communal goal of these devices is to save users time, making their lives more efficient, 和 getting the mundanity of their lives out of the way. 但, while is the promise that most voice assistants pledge to their users, 就像他们现在的样子, even as they make their way into washing machines, 冰箱, 和更多的, Nagaraju认为，在开始履行这一承诺之前，他们还有很长的路要走, both in social acceptance 和 hardware capability.

Do Voice Assistants Pose 安全 Threats?

Voice assistants are a big deal for most families. Just imagine inviting a stranger into your home, a stranger who writes down everything you, 你的配偶, 你的孩子会说，并记录下你每天接触的媒体. 对一些人来说, voice assistants are this stranger, 这是一种可怕的安全风险，而他们却难以置信地迟迟不让这种风险进入他们的生活.

Nagaraju说，在大多数情况下，这并不像大多数人认为的那样是个大问题. 针对智能设备语音助手，有多种安全措施, 包括设备内存储器. 助手收集的大部分信息都存储在设备上，而不是与云共享. So, when a user asks their assistant a question or gives it a request, that information is not ported to the cloud, 和, Nagaraju说, 没有人在黑它.

除了, these voice assistants can create voice profiles for individuals in the home, adding another level of security for users’ data.

然而, some data does have to be processed in 和 ported to the cloud, specifically when you are interacting with an account on another site, 包括电子商务网站.

“The information that you are giving away, maybe when they're buying things, is actually public information,Nagaraju说. “Underst和 it's going into the cloud, 它位于云层之上, 和 it is subject to hacking 和 things like that.”

这样的安全措施和创新可能会增强语音助手的合法性, 进一步推动它们达到JARVIS级别的有用性和效率，这是Nagaraju希望从自己的智能设备中获得的. With ease of mind comes better social acceptance, 和 with more social acceptance comes a greater emphasis on hardware evolution, 这些智能设备和人工云计算设备最需要的是什么.

Are Voice Assistants All That Powerful?

Most consumers buy their voice assistants expecting an all-in-一个 solution, 能够吸收上下文线索，真正了解他们收到的每个命令中的潜在请求. 虽然它们正在彻底改变智能设备行业，并进入从冰箱到汽车仪表盘的所有领域, there’s always room for growth.

“It's been promised to everybody that, 最终, 助理会真正了解你是谁，并在适当的时候给你解决方案, 在正确的地方, 和 the way that you like best,Nagaraju说.

但是，正如我们已经确定的那样，语音助手还没有达到JARVIS的最高水平. 它们本身绝对是有用的——谁不喜欢在刚吃完最后一袋爆米花和其他零食后就能订购新的爆米花盒和其他零食呢? 这些设备使用户可以将购物和大部分娱乐活动转移到语音用户界面上, 节省了他们宝贵的时间，让他们有机会在几秒钟内播放任何想到的歌曲.

但, with automated schedule shifting 和 other more advanced functions in mind, the technology has quite a way to go. 据Nagaraju说, a singular smart speaker is relatively simple by design, 这意味着大多数计算和人工智能处理都在云端进行. 它只是没有达到大多数人想象他们理想的语音助手时所期望的水平.

“人们认为，‘嘿，这是我的助手，我要花30美元去买它，’”Nagaraju说. “但 it is really not doing everything for everybody yet. 可能会到达那里. It will take a few more years, but, today, there's very limited usage.”

正如我们在2016年看到的那样 电路拆卸, devices like the Amazon Echo contain 微米 memory, which aids the internal processor of the device, 但要达到更高的计算水平，真正的创新需要更好的设备内存和更好的超大规模云内存的混合 , much of which 微米 is spearheading within the industry.

一旦这样的创新是Nagaraju所描述的包装定制的一种形式, 工程师在一个设备中集成两种技术来帮助降低能耗. 这, 反过来, helps make the device smaller, 这意味着越来越多的智能设备可以连接到美光内存所支持的强大人工智能云.

了解JARVIS

有了这项新技术，未来的语音助手程序就不远了.

“在接下来的几年里, 一个, 他们会有更多的数据, 和两个, the algorithms will start to underst和 context,Nagaraju说.

最终, 当这些语音助手开始为人们腾出时间时，它们将达到鼎盛时期, 这正是许多满怀希望的消费者在购买新的智能扬声器或开始使用手机的语音助手功能时所渴望的.

With 微米 memory already in these devices, there’s nowhere to go but up. As 微米 increases their memory capabilities, so too will they increase voice assistant capabilities. Nagaraju might have his JARVIS assistant so一个r rather than later.