Explore with Alexa is a new feature of Amazon’s Alexa that provides youngsters with individualized and reliable educational replies.
Amazon is aiming to gain a competitive advantage in the consumer AI market by introducing novel generative AI functionalities to Alexa, its digital assistant that functions across several platforms and devices, coinciding with the peak of the holiday shopping season. On Wednesday, the e-commerce and digital behemoth unveiled Explore with Alexa, a kid-focused offering.
The goal of Explore with Alexa is to respond to children’s inquiries in a more tailored and age-appropriate manner. The business assured Decrypt that it would be available on every Amazon Echo device with a kid profile and come with the monthly Amazon Kids+ membership.
According to Amazon, the new Explore with Alexa feature will answer children’s queries about nature and animals with entertaining facts and trivia. The firm claims that these answers are modified from “trusted sources” including A-Z Animals and the World Wildlife Fund.
Arjun Venkataswamy, Senior Product Manager of Alexa Kids, stated, “Our LLM stack makes it possible to adapt this vetted content into natural, kid-friendly responses with age-appropriate vocabulary.” “We began with trivia questions because, in addition to being entertaining, they make use of an extensively studied pedagogical strategy known as ‘activating prior knowledge.'”
By uttering Alexa’s wake-up command and posing a question, children will be able to learn on demand with the upgraded Alexa, according to Amazon. Additionally, the service will provide thought-provoking queries meant to maintain children’s interest in delving deeper into a subject.
According to Venkataswamy, “Explore with Alexa includes the same accessibility focus and features as Alexa overall.” “We review all Explore with Alexa content as part of the hybrid human and AI evaluation process to ensure that it’s inclusive for kids with a wide range of backgrounds.”
Similar to Google and Microsoft, Amazon has made significant investments in generative AI technology, including a $4 billion investment in rival OpenAI company Anthropic, which developed Claude AI. The e-commerce behemoth revealed a slew of new AI-powered products in September, including extensions to its smart home product line.
However, adapting generative AI for children has been a contentious topic, and legislators and watchdog organizations are leery of any technology that is available to children. 34 states sued Meta, the parent corporation of Facebook and Instagram, on Tuesday, claiming that Meta exploits its algorithms to trick kids into using the platforms more and to worsen their mental health problems.
“Explore with Alexa puts trust and safety at the forefront, building on our long-term commitment to preserve the trust of our customers and their families,” Venkataswamy stated. “We are using both content guardrails: we are adapting content from reliable sources, starting with safe, objective topics like animals, and using a combination of human and AI review.”
The issues of data collection, storage, and access for AI models continue to be major concerns, even as developers strive to safeguard children on the internet. Tech firms like Samsung and Apple, the U.S. Congress, as well as the U.S. Because they are concerned about data breaches and intellectual property theft, Space Force has prohibited or limited its workers and service members from using ChatGPT.
Fears from 2019 when it was revealed that Amazon hired human contractors to listen to Alexa recordings were revived this month when reports claimed that the company trains its AI models on consumer interactions. Customers have the option to refuse to have their data shared with the corporation, an Amazon representative made clear to Decrypt.
According to the spokesman, “[Amazon] has always believed that training Alexa with real-world requests is essential to delivering an experience to customers that is accurate, personalized, and always improving.” However, we also provide users the option to decide whether or not to have their voice recordings from Alexa utilized to enhance the service, and we always take their choices into account when training our models.
