Voice assistant “Alice” learned to recognize the owner by voice. To do this, the user needs to repeat five phrases behind the assistant so that the algorithm can compose a voice model. So far, this allows Alice to take into account the musical preferences of only one user, according to the Yandex website.
Modern voice assistants can not only talk about the weather or respond to search queries, but also perform more important functions. For example, they can read events from a calendar or recent private messages, and also activate connected devices, such as an air conditioner or a lamp. This can potentially make life easier for users, but it is also dangerous because unauthorized people can access such a tool.
To protect against unauthorized access, many popular voice assistants, such as Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa, are equipped with voice recognition. Now this function was received also by the voice assistant “Alice” from Yandex. To configure the function of a smart column, you need to say “Alice, remember my voice“. After that, the assistant first asks for the username, and then asks him to repeat five phrases, on the basis of which the algorithms create a voice model for subsequent recognition.
So far, the voice recognition function in Alice has several limitations. Firstly, it works only with music and allows not to take into account the musical preferences of other people in the future when they ask the column to put certain songs or genres. Secondly, the service can remember only one user. Thirdly, if the user has several columns of different models, the voice memorization procedure must be completed on each of them.
It is not known whether Yandex plans to extend this feature to other personalized or critical requests. For example, in May, the company introduced a new version of the Yandex.Auto car multimedia system that allows you to control some of the car’s functions using voice commands: you can ask Alice in the car to open a window or even turn on a device connected to the smart home system on the way.
Via | Yandex