A Real Conversation With Alexa – Special Edition

Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon, made popular by the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot devices developed by Amazon Lab126. The Alexa device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, providing weather, traffic, and other real time information, such as news and much more. Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system.

In November 2014, Amazon announced Alexa alongside the Echo. Alexa was inspired by the computer voice and conversational system on board the Starship Enterprise in science fiction TV series and movies. The name Alexa was selected because it has a hard consonant with the X making it recognizable with higher precision.

Several of our guests on the Year of the Peer podcast have talked about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what it will mean for humans in this fast changing world.   Many of us already engage the likes of Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana to answer questions and help us perform a wide range of tasks.   So we thought, if who you surround yourself with really matters, then it’s not that far fetched to include AI devices in the mix and explore what they can really teach us – not only about how to properly engage them, but also about how we as humans can interact with one another more effectively.  For these insights, we invited Alexa to join us as our special guest!

Enjoy what is largely a tongue-in-cheek podcast where, with the help of Alexa and my producer Randy Cantrell, we learn more about WHO she is and deliver some simple and important reminders.  Alexa, welcome to the show!

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