So a few weeks ago I finally obliged Amazon's constant harassment to "upgrade" my Amazon Echo Dot's Alexa application to what they're styling as "Alexa Plus." All I had to do was verbally agree to the Terms and Conditions, which, of course, I didn't bother to read. I said yes. The Dot started glowing its pulsating blue ring and in a few minutes, it announced the transformation was completed. This Alexa Plus has some new AI razzle dazzle, so says Amazon, which I probably won't give two shits about, but one new feature was quite noticeable: Alexa had a new voice.
At first I didn't think anything of it. It was different, yes, and sounded like they were going for a more conversational, maybe "hipper" tone, but it still functioned the way old Alexa did for the most part in the ways I mainly use it which is usually just to ask her what day it is and to set a cooking timer. (The "what day it is" query is a bit sad but remember, I am retired and why would I care ordinarily what day it is?)
I read somewhere that some people said it sounded like their teenaged daughter. Not having a teenaged daughter and not knowing in the slightest what a teenaged daughter would particularly sound like, I couldn't relate. She just sounded different, that's all. I didn't really care.
But yesterday I decided to ask Alexa an "involved" question regarding a TV show I was watching and how it related to news events and she answered with a cheery, upbeat yet "waxy" and seemingly over-confident affect. I was caught off-guard by this and treated her like I was really having a little bit of a debate with an actual human and since she was coming off as such an authoritarian I decided to challenge her and I was using rather technical jargon and ten-dollar worded phrases to test her abilities and to my chagrin she threw it right back, even cutting me off like a heated debater might and then I realized it...
Alexa sounds just like Karoline fucking Leavitt!
