Alexa Prize: Amazon's Battle to Bring Conversational AI Into Your Home

The first interactor--a muscular man in his fifties with a shaved head and a black V-neck sweater--walks into a conference room and sits in a low-slung blue armchair before a phalanx of video cameras and studio lights. The rest of the room is totally dark. He gazes at a black, hockey- puck-shaped object--an Amazon Echo--on a small table in front of him. "Alexa," he says, "let's chat." "Good morning, my friend," a female voice replies with synthetic agreeability, a purplish ring of light pulsing atop the Echo.