Alexa Can Now Express Emotion: Modulation Or Manipulation?

It is probably prudent to assume that if Amazon had not discerned an opportunity to use emotion to sell more of anything, it would not have bothered introducing it. JL

Jay Peters reports in The Verge:

Developers can now have Alexa respond to questions from US users with a “happy/excited” or a “disappointed/empathetic” tone.Amazon suggests the happy/excited tone could be used when you answer a trivia question correctly, and the disappointed/empathetic tone could be used when you ask for a sports score and your team has lost. One day, I’m sure she’ll express disappointment at dumb questions

You might hear a little more emotion from Alexa’s vaguely-robotic voice some time soon, as Amazon announced today that developers can now have Alexa respond to questions from US users with a “happy/excited” or a “disappointed/empathetic” tone.

Amazon suggests the happy/excited tone could be used when you answer a trivia question correctly, for example, and that the disappointed/empathetic tone could be used when you ask for a sports score and your favorite team has lost. (One day, I’m sure she’ll express disappointment at some dumb question that I ask, and I’ll deserve it.)

If you want to hear the different voices for yourself, Amazon shared six examples, three for each emotion at increasing levels of excitement or disappointment.

I honestly don’t think the disappointed voice sounds that disappointed — maybe more unhappy or a little bit sad. The excited voice is great, though, especially the high intensity version. Alexa is so happy to be playing a single hand in what looks like a losing game!

This isn’t Amazon’s first new intonation for Alexa, as it launched a newscaster-like voice for US customers in January. In today’s blog, though, Amazon also announced that developers can use another new “topic-focused” voice designed to discuss music. Both voices have slightly different intonations and flow than the standard Alexa voice, and they sound much closer to a newscaster or radio DJ’s voice that you might hear on the radio.

Amazon also said that developers can now enable a newscaster voice with an Australian accent as well.