The number of smart speaker users is growing by 48%
a year. That's faster than any tech
product since the smart phone. By the end
of 2018, 90 million Americans will have smart speakers. (Koetsier, 2018)
No longer just for techies, speakers are now being
adopted by Baby Boomers (8 million users), younger Gen X women, and parents and
families - including my 7 year old niece Mallory, who got one for her birthday.
(Stone, 2018)
Before
long we'll all be having conversations with our voice assistants. And then, we'll be happy to let them make our
decisions for us.
Decision-making
is hard work. What makes it even harder
is having too many choices. And the
Internet is all about infinite choices. So
we find plenty of short cuts to make decisions easier. For instance we may look at only one element
- say price, or we could only consider items with a 5 star rating - which
indicates that others like the product.
It's what we do.
So, I
wasn't surprised to read that 85% of voice assistant users have purchased the
item suggested by smart speakers despite the fact that it may have differed
from their initial intent. And, 37% of
voice purchasers 18-34 "always" or "often" purchase the
first option selected for them by voice assistants. (Faw, 2018)
It's just
so much easier to let someone else decide.
Do you
have a smart speaker yet? If so, have
you bought anything based on a recommendation from it? If you don't have a smart speaker yet, are
you planning to get one? Will you let it
make decisions for you even if they are biased?
Does it concern you that you have far less choice when you buy things on
mobile phones and smart speakers than you do online?
Koetsier,
J. (2018, May 29) Smart Speaker Users
Growing 48% Annually, To Hit 90M In USA This Year. forbes.com. Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2018/05/29/smart-speaker-users-growing-48-annually-will-outnumber-wearable-tech-users-this-year/#3da75bc05dde
Stone,
J. (2018, November 9) Smart Boomers,
Smart Speakers, Smart Marketing. mediapost.com. Retrieved November 28, 2018, from
Faw,
L. (2018, August 8) How Brands Can Avoid The Dreaded Voice Assistant
'Dismissal' mediapost.com Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/323358/how-brands-can-avoid-the-dreaded-voice-assistant.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline&utm_campaign=110385&hashid=ybq2buULrntyGS6NfbELk0afrrI
9 comments:
I don’t have a smart speaker and I don’t plan to get one in the future. I don’t like smart speakers for several reasons. First, I don’t like to stay with a device which may save my personal information and preferences in my home. My major is Marketing Analytics, I understand how the organizations get personal data from ordinary users and make use of those data for their profits by legal methods. Our PCs and smartphones may also leak our personal information, but we can use them carefully, avoid the operations which may leak our information, like closing the cookies on PC or closing the location access on smartphone. However, If I put a smart speaker in my room, I will be nervous that the device may record my life and leak my information by the ways that I don’t understand. I don’t want to my speaker to be so “smart” and I have limited options to control it. The smart speaker would be the “big brother” who is watching you all the times.
Second, I don’t think the smart speaker can help me to do the right decisions. It is not rational to simply trust the decisions made by a device. Usually, I would make a purchase decision on Amazon after I consider about the rating stars, the number of ratings, the reviews, the credibility of the reviews, the brand quality, the appeal of products, the functions of the products, the prices and so on. I make a decision from the data, and the information I get, and I have my personal weight factors on different products, like the appeals, the prices or the functions. Although the smart devices could choose some products from simply filtering the prices, rating stars and purchase numbers, I don’t think the result would be the one I want. The smart speaker is not smart enough to help me make decisions. By the way, if the speakers could be as smart as humans, that would be fearful.
Third, the users of smart speakers tend to rely on their devices heavily as we rely on our PCs and phones every day. “85% of voice assistant users have purchased the item suggested by smart speakers despite the fact that it may have differed from their initial intent. And, 37% of voice purchasers 18-34 "always" or "often" purchase the first option selected for them by voice assistants.” We rely on PCs and phones because we can make use them well to work or to study efficiently. But it is unrationed to rely on something which can help us think. People would be too lazy to think if they have something which can help them think. Relying on something which would make us stupid is not smart.
I don’t have a smart speaker and I don’t plan to get one in the future. I don’t like smart speakers for several reasons. First, I don’t like to stay with a device which may save my personal information and preferences in my home. My major is Marketing Analytics, I understand how the organizations get personal data from ordinary users and make use of those data for their profits by legal methods. Our PCs and smartphones may also leak our personal information, but we can use them carefully, avoid the operations which may leak our information, like closing the cookies on PC or closing the location access on the smartphone. However, If I put a smart speaker in my room, I will be nervous that the device may record my life and leak my information by the ways that I don’t understand. I don’t want my speaker to be so “smart” and I have limited options to control it. The smart speaker would be the “big brother” who is watching you all the times.
Second, I don’t think the smart speaker can help me to do the right decisions. It is not rational to simply trust the decisions made by a device. Usually, I would make a purchase decision on Amazon after I consider about the rating stars, the number of ratings, the reviews, the credibility of the reviews, the brand quality, the appeal of products, the functions of the products, the prices and so on. I make a decision from the data, and the information I get, and I have my personal weight factors on different products, like the appeals, the prices or the functions. Although the smart devices could choose some products from simply filtering the prices, rating stars and purchase numbers, I don’t think the result would be the one I want. The smart speaker is not smart enough to help me make decisions. By the way, if the speakers could be as smart as humans, that would be fearful.
Third, the users of smart speakers tend to rely on their devices heavily as we rely on our PCs and phones every day. “85% of voice assistant users have purchased the item suggested by smart speakers despite the fact that it may have differed from their initial intent. And, 37% of voice purchasers 18-34 "always" or "often" purchase the first option selected for them by voice assistants.” We rely on PCs and phones because we can make use them well to work or to study efficiently. But it is unrationed to rely on something which can help us think. People would be too lazy to think if they rely on something which can help them to think. Relying on something which would make us stupid is not smart.
Guo Yu
I do not have a smart speaker nor do I plan to get one in the near future. Yes, it seems convenient being able to just tell your speaker to increase the volume of your music but personally, when it comes down to minuscule everyday tasks, I would much rather I complete them myself. I don't like the idea of having a smart speaker making your decisions. I dont want to become even more dependent on technology than I already am. It does not concern me that we have less choices on our phones or smart speakers than we do online because, like Professor Lehrer mentioned, there is so much to choose from on the internet and when the number of decisions that we need to make is being curated, Im sure it is nice to take some of that overwhelming stress of your back. If I were to buy one, however, I do not think I would have it make decisions for me, it would be more of my third hand if I have a lot going on at once or if I am feeling extra lazy.
I do not have a smart speaker but maybe I will consider buying one in the future. I however, I have a few friends who use them to ask questions, use them to control wirelessly enabled lights as well as use them to order products and take away online, inquire for the weather forecast, date among other functions. I have therefore witnessed people buy products using their recommendations.
One of the reasons as to why I would consider using the smart speakers in the future is that before assisting people in making decisions, they allow someone to research for product prices of various goods. I may not allow them to make decisions for me but I might use them for other purposes like research, setting timers and for getting updates on traffic or on the weather. From the experience, I have seen from other people they make biased decisions and furthermore present just a few choices when buying products. I would therefore not use them for decision making.
Yue Feng
I don't really have a smart speaker, and I don't like the smart speaker. Since it makes me feel that I am being monitored. I have seen some report showing that smart speaker company will gather some datas of users and sell them for profits. For example, what your lifestyle is, what you like to listen, what you like to buy. They will know everything about you, and I think this is terrifying. Also they might reccomend a product that is cooperating with the company and which might not be the best choice. So I will probably not get a smart speaker.
I don't have a smart speaker yet, my family at home does and I see them interacting with it more and more every time I come home to visit. I've been looking into buying a smart speaker, and think I will pretty soon. Since I know they are biased I will probably set up a standard list of things I buy on a regular basis, like toilet paper etc. Other things, I like to do my own research before ordering online and would most likely not trust my smart speaker for making my decisions for me.. Unless it's small things where my effort is not justified and I would let the smart speaker make the decision for me. It does not concern me because I still have the choice at the end of the day to decide where and how I buy my things.
After briefly thinking about the question you asked, I did some little research on websites. I typed "Let AI make decisions for you" as the keywords into the search box. The relevant search results are all kinds of opinions. Yes, some even made me feel overwhelmed. So the answer is: no, I will not buy a smart speaker to make the buying decision for me.
Indeed, artificial intelligence is the future direction, and applications like Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Google home are growing every year. These smart devices are designed for personal use and the home, while there are many other chatbots being utilized in a number of online environments such as user technical support.
But the question is, should we really hand over the decision-making power to these artificial intelligences? For example, the choice between purchasing products.
Indeed, when we are going shopping, making choices is painful and tangled, because people are both emotional and rational, and different people have different consumption concepts. However, for me, my personal opinion is that it is the self-decision-making makes the markets and people(as consumers) more special and unique. Making the decision makes the shopping more enjoyable.
Nevertheless, a few weeks ago, during the Thanksgiving’s Black Friday, what those shopaholics need most is nothing more than a “price comparator” that can calculate the discounts for themselves. At this time, these artificial intelligences can come in handy to play its role - help people make buying decisions.
However, before trusting the ability of these Ai to compare prices (just like the students with low grades believes that the answer written by students with high grades must be right), the few questions we must think about is that this AI is absolutely neutral when it’s making decisions? Who is selling this mart product? Can this smart technology really be useful for consumers?
And after thinking about all these questions. I know deep in my heart that the answers to these questions may not be what consumers are happy to see. People may need to be cautious about this technology. It is way easier to let someone else making decisions for us, and the AI is already very well-developed to help us make decisions and calculate the discounts, but before that, we need to be vigilant, don’t let Al squander our purchasing power.
Tricia Shen
I don’t have a smart speaker and I don’t want to get one in my future life. It scares me when someone is making decisions for me. Smart speaker is not even human! I like to shopping online. Sometimes it’s easier to compare similar products in this way. It’s true that smart speaker could help you find exact product that you tell it to find, but that’s might not be exactly you want. You would less secure when you purchased it because you didn’t do research yourself. You don’t even know the unique functions about the product you purchased suggesting by smart speaker. Sometimes when I search on one item, I would find some other interesting items too. If smart speaker is helping me to find the item, I could only get exact results that I told it to find. It’s disappointing me.
Elsie
I do not have a smart speaker, but plan on buying one because my boyfriend just moved and we recently went to a friends house who had a sonos and Alexa which was amazing because it made changing the channels or songs that were playing much easier. Also his friend ordered food from alexa while cleaning the house so it saved him so much time. After seeing that example from his friends I thought about how convenient it would be for my boyfriend to get one for his apartment. I would like to have the device make decisions for me, because I have trouble making decisions like food or changing a song sometimes so I think it would be helpful. I think that it depends on how much time you have to shop around for a product and how important this product is. For example if I was buying something that was very expensive and as a present I would want to make sure that I took the time to buy it and search my options I would have wanted. But if they are trivial things I would not care if a device gave me suggestions.
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