The machines that learned to listen

A toddler meanders unsteadily through the living room, pausing by a sleek black cylinder in the corner. "Alexa," he says in a high-pitched voice. The cylinder acknowledges the request, despite the muffled pronunciation, and the music starts. Alexa, a cloud-based speech recognition software from Amazon and the brain of its black cylindrical loudspeaker Echo, has been a big hit around the world – except for the younger ones, who take it for granted. Children will grow up alongside it, just as Alexa will evolve, as the AI powering it learns to answer more and more questions, and – perhaps – one day even converses freely with people.