Time to Accept Artificial Intelligence as Part of the Family?

By now, many of us have heard about or might even own one of the popular, sleek multi-functional voice-first devices, such as the Amazon Echo, also known as "Alexa", the name used when waking the device to give a verbal command. Quick joke: How do you make Alexa laugh? This joke is terrible for many reasons, not the least of which is that I ended up anthropomorphized a digital device, which may be one of the biggest issues with this devices. Related: There's No Doubt That Amazon Alexa Is the Next Big Thing First, according to Voice Labs Voice Report for 2017, 6.5 million voice-first devices -- defined as an always-on piece of hardware utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) with primarily a voice interface, both for input and output -- were shipped in 2016. In 2017, that number is estimated to grow to 24.5 million devices shipped, thanks in large part to its appearance during the Super Bowl commercials.