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Comment by skywhopper | Hacker News Reader

> when a dad says to the smart speaker on his counter, “Alexa, I need brown rice and pork,” the product that arrives is an Amazon-branded box containing Amazon–Whole Foods–branded rice and pork.

I question whether the author here has ever cooked a meal, much less shopped for ingredients. There's no way this style of interaction can produce the desired result here.

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Just this week I asked Siri to remind me to water the plants when I got home from work–that night as I walked up my block my phone lit up with the message “What are the planets?”. Existential ponderings aside, I’m almost tempted to start ordering grocery delivery by voice just to see what kind of hilarious misunderstandings arise.

Maybe it was unrelated and your phone just achieved sentience.

The notion that one can generally shop, let alone shop for groceries, via a voice interface is puzzling.

I'm ok with other family members adding things to a wishlist (called "shopping list" in the Alexa system), although I often have to ask for clarification -- when you said "white chocolate", did you know we already have some? oh, you want another type? which one specifically?

I generally find that 'eggs' and 'milk' might be on my shopping list 4 or 5 times by the time I actually go shopping, and 'onions' will somehow remain on the list until I have accumulated at least five pounds.

Actually, in this brave new world the home AI system - Alexa - asks the dad what dinner is going to be this evening. The dad says that he fancies risotto with some herb tasting sausages and maybe some side salad. Alexa does not magically do the cooking but will establish that ingredients will be needed. The contents of the fridge and general provision levels will be known, plus an existing house way of doing things, e.g. mixing brown rice in with the risotto rice and hand making the sausages from whatever pork is available.

Alexa will also be able to know what you like from what stays and what goes out to recycling. So that tin of prunes in the cupboard won't become a dozen tins for programming error reasons.

It will be a bit like living with someone that stays at home all day and has time to go out and do the shopping, you might do all the cooking as part of the relationship with a fair expectation that everything needed for agreed meal plans is purchased.

Alexa could also know how to optimise inventory, so if it makes sense to buy a 25 Kg bag of brown rice due to so much of it being eaten by such a large family with such a large house that have been customers at that address for such a long time, then so be it.

If the home cupboards and fridge are a 'cache' in this food network then the AI would also know of favourites and have things on hand. So there may be a variable selection of ice creams that could be on hand if the main course needed a dessert without one being specially requested. Favourite main meals could also be 'cached', this could be learned to suit the lifestyle, so if you do have a dozen people needing feeding at ad-hoc dinner parties or if you actually never have friends visit, the AI should get it.

> Alexa does not magically do the cooking

I've got news for you... http://www.moley.com/

And Alexa will happily sell every detail of your household consumption for the rest of you and your children's lives.

Nope, for the same reason Google doesn't. The data is worth more to Amazon if they keep it to themselves.

The system could conceivably learn what a particular user means by "pork" (which cut, how much) and "brown rice" on the first iteration, and then default to that next time if no further specification is given.

This is surprisingly subtle as a user interaction. Imagine the first time the user asks for "pork", Alexa asks follow up questions - "what cut", "how much", etc. There is a whole taxonomy!

The next time, the user has learnt the flow and starts walking down the taxonomy path for pork by asking for "pork"- or so the user thinks! Alexa just immediately dispatches the same cut the user bought three weeks ago. User never trusts Alexa again.

> Alexa just immediately dispatches the same cut the user bought three weeks ago. User never trusts Alexa again.

Obviously Alexa wouldn't just order it right away. It could easily say:

> Alexa: "Would like like to order the same x cut from last time?"

[Yes/No]

> Alexa: "Okay great, the total will be x and the delivery estimate is 1hr, shall I submit this order?"

[Yes/No]

> Alexa: "The order has been submitted, I'll notify you when it's marked as out for delivery"

> "Would like like to order the same x cut from last time?"

No, I think I want the one from 3 times ago? Or was it 4?

replace 'x' with the name of the cut.

I can't speak for other people, but I can see this being a bad feature for me.

It'd be great for chicken where I usually get the same thing (~5lbs chicken thighs). For beef though it'd be an absolute nightmare. I vary between flank, eye of round, ribeye, rib roast (which granted is basically a really big ribeye) and chuck in different amounts depending on what I feel like cooking.

I also know myself well enough to know I'm going to have a forgetful moment in the kitchen, order "beef" when I'm focusing on something else, and accidentally end up with 5 lbs of flank when I wanted 1 lb of ribeye.

My cat has been trying to vocalize what sounds like: "Alexa, please ship Walter to the Kat Fud factory."

Should I be concerned?

Steve Martin's "Cat Handcuffs" routine nailed this concept 40? years ago.

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