automated assistant
A Taxonomy of Automated Assistants
Automated cars are in our future--and starting to be in our present. In 2014, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) published the first version of a taxonomy for degree of automation in vehicles from Level 0 (not automated) to Level 5 (fully automated, no human intervention necessary).8 Since then, this taxonomy has gained wide acceptance--to the point where everyone from the U.S. government (used by the NHTSA5) to auto manufacturers to the popular press are talking in terms of "skipping level 3" or "everyone wants a level 5 car."1 As technology gets developed and improved, having an accepted taxonomy helps ensure people can talk to each other and know they are talking about the same thing. It is time for one of our computing organizations (perhaps ACM?) to develop an analogous taxonomy for automated assistants. With Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and cohorts selling in the "tens of millions"2 and with more than 20 competitors on the market,7 having an easily understandable taxonomy will help practitioners and end users alike.