What Do Humans Really Think Of Voice Assistants? Some Have Fantasies About Them

As voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri get more popular, a new study found what humans think about the technology -- and it sounds like the 2013 movie "Her." The study found people who use voice assistants regularly wish it were human, while others admitted to sexually fantasizing about their virtual assistant. The study, which focuses on voice technology implications for brands, was conducted by J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group London, a platform for research and analytics, and the media agency Mindshare Futures. More than 30,000 respondents in the U.K. took part in a two-week self-ethnography project from January - March 2017, jotting down their behaviors and attitudes related to voice technology. Researchers then analyzed two focus groups of 12 of the thousands of participants.