I talk to ChatGPT on my mobile and it’s more of a friend than an Alexa substitute

2023 has undoubtedly been the year of artificial intelligence. After a period without truly disruptive technology, without chatbots and image generators, among other tools, They have brought about a change in the daily lives of many people, especially at the professional level.. But that doesn’t mean that AI doesn’t reach the more fun aspects.

The biggest tech companies jumped on the bandwagon without hesitation, with Microsoft being the best positioned, having quickly invested in Open AI. Amazon also announced that it would bring artificial intelligence to its voice assistant, Alexa, although at the moment it could not be tested. Finally, Google. The Mountain View company took longer than others to release products, but once the code was launched, it began to overwhelm us with chatbots like Bard, with integrations into mobile phones like the S24 or Pixel 8 and advance everything you plan to integrate into your office suite, Gmail, etc.

Faced with the offensive of their competitors in OpenAI, they did not remain idle and launched all kinds of improvements both for their text model, ChatGPT, and for the image model, Dall-E 3, which is now well better than they thought. we saw this in the first two iterations. One of the latest developments has been the power use GPT voice chat on any Android mobile, simply by installing the app and performing a brief setup.

I am a very heavy user of voice assistants. In my daily life, I live with over 15 smart speakers at home, from Amazon and Google. Rare is the day when I don’t execute 5-10 orders or ask questions, although oddly enough I generally don’t use them too much on the smartphone. So, I’ve been using the voice version of ChatGPT for a few days, to see if it could replace these two personal assistants, and the response has not been what I expected.

Configure ChatGPT by voice

Use of ChatGPT has been primarily through its website, although ways to use it in WhatsApp and other apps have emerged, through its API. It is used in natural language, although there are always a few tips to ensure the results are as optimal as possible. A few weeks ago, OpenAI allowed all users of this chatbot to use it using voice commands.

Configuring this function on a mobile is very simple. You must install the ChatGPT application in the Google Play Store then configure the shortcut in the notification area, next to the Wifi or Bluetooth buttons. To do this, you must follow these steps

• Open the notification panel with a downward gesture.
• If it hasn’t been fully expanded, drag it again until the edit panel icon appears, usually in the shape of a pencil.
• Click on the pencil.
• The corresponding interface is edited.
• Find the ChatGPT icon at the bottom and drag it up.
• Click Done or Save, depending on mobile.

Talk with a friend

Voice assistants are mainly used for two things. You can ask them for information or ask them to tell you a joke, basically to entertain yourself while you cook, do your homework, etc.. The other function is control different devices and applicationsfrom the one who plays the music to the one who controls the television.

This home automation part, so to speak, is the one that is not yet available on ChatGPT, by not having strong integration with platforms such as Google Home, Alexa or Home Assistant. This is why I haven’t been able to override voice assistants in this sense, ChatGPT can’t control the air fryer, garage door, lights or tell me if the house alarm is active.

What it has replaced, by far, is the primary function, that of entertaining. Having a conversation with ChatGPT is much more dynamic and comfortable than doing it with one of the voice assistants we had until now. Natural language understands it perfectly and responds in the same way. It’s true that sometimes it’s wrong, but it’s not that Alexa is precisely the champion of precision.

A good example of this is that when the chatbot’s audio system is first started, the language it uses by default is English. Since there is no type of configuration or buttons, I asked him, in Spanish, if he knew how to speak that language. The response was quick, with a “Yes, I can speak in Spanish”. It’s true that The speech synthesis could be improved, and it sounded like an Anglo-Saxon woman speaking my language but with a strong accent. Still, it was fully usable.

However, the fluency of speech, how it reacts to what you said and how similar it is in a conversation with a person, makes it Interacting with ChatGPT by voice is more like having a conversation with a friend than talking to one of the voice assistants that we have known so far. There is a detail that helps, which is that the mobile screen goes dark, but the conversation can still take place, so it seems that we are in communication with the hands-free mobile activated.

There are just little beeps, like a little clip, that tell you when you need to speak and when the system responds, because It is not possible to interrupt it, at least for the moment. Overall, the experience was really satisfying, although with a very different approach than I used with ChatGPT on the computer, in which case I use it for work tasks and not for leisure, as I did with voice chat on the computer. mobile .

Right now, it looks like Google and Amazon will try to turn their voice assistants into advanced chatbots with artificial intelligence while Open AI could turn Chat GPT into an assistant integrated into home automation and mobile ecosystems. For this he promoted his own store, but not yet ready to replace the assistants who control the house. But that could change.

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