TODAY'S WORLD: OHH ALEXAAAAA

Algorithms fly high and mighty in the technology era we currently live in. Algorithms have the ability to persuade and convince you of things you haven’t even thought of yet. They set you up for ease and success, but more importantly, they set products and brands up for ease and success. Alexa’s machine learning algorithm has made people’s lives so much easier. From simply turning on lights, to looking up recipes, asking for advice, and even being able to recognize your voice, Alexa’s got you covered. As I often use Alexa myself, I began to question the method behind the madness. So… is Alexa truly always listening?

How Alexa works is quite simple- speak and she will listen, ask and she will tell, say and she will do. Okay, it may not actually be as simple as that, but that is the general gist of how she works. When I looked up the mechanisms behind Alexa, I discovered that the algorithm breaks down the “order” spoken to Alexa. There is a wake word, an invocation name, and a utterance. The wake word is what “wakes” Alexa up, so maybe she isn’t always listening.

Waking the beast

Well, maybe she isn’t always directly listening. I came across an article posted on Reader’s Digest where they spoke about Florian Schaup and how he claims that systems, like Alexa, “Are always listening, but by default, they are only listening for the ‘wake word’ or activation keyword” (Schaup). After reading this, I was still quite skeptical so I decided to do my own experiment.

How many times have you spoken about something and the next thing you know, an ad for that said thing pops up somewhere on your feed? Quite often I would presume. As I sat in the kitchen, I spoke about Chipotle and how badly I wanted it for dinner towards my roommate and we then continued to hold our conversation to be just about chipotle. Then, I said, “Hey Alexa, give me suggestions for dinner takeout” and one of her suggestions was Chipotle. Crazy, right? Why did this happen? The wake word in that sentence was Alexa of course, so how did she know I was craving Chipotle? There are still so many unanswered questions here, but I don’t know if myself, or anyone else for that matter, will get the answers to our curiosities.

I plan to use this information to my advantage when it comes to circulating my portfolio more effectively. I plan to drop broad, but key phrases into titles of my blogs and other pieces I decide to display for the world to see. I need to tailor those phrases to my target audience so there is a larger chance they will see, like, comment, and maybe even share.

Alexa, if you’re reading this, hello.