Amazon took the technology industry by surprise today when it announced ‘Hey you!’, a new digital assistant aimed specifically at the adult home market.
Unlike the company’s market-leading ‘Alexa’, which responds to all questions with standard, inoffensive responses, the new product uses AI to adjust its temperament to match their own.
Amazon Product Manager Stelios Tecnokopolis told Spoofflé: “We listened to our customers and they told us they were sick of Alexa dishing out bland answers to their questions. If you’re in a bit of a strop then this new product will give as good as it gets.”
Our own Dr Crispin Grundwald was the first UK journalist to be given an early production model of the ‘Hey you!’ to test and the results shocked him.
“It was very, very interesting,” he said. ” At first sight you think ‘oh just another a digital assistant’ but after a few hours I really felt I’d started to build, well, almost a relationship with the thing.” Crispin then took the machine home with him and set it up in his kitchen.
“I’d had a long day, and came home to find the dog had crapped on the new carpet and my son had written off his car so I soon sank a whole bottle of Merlot. Next thing, this little white box is telling me I’m pathetic and that I should pull myself together! Within a couple of minutes we were having a full-scale row!”
Crispin says he found the encounter brutally refreshing. “I actually heard myself screaming ‘you stupid bastard’ at it, to which it muttered ‘look who’s talking’, mimicking my own voice! Just brilliant. I didn’t get to bed until 4 o’clock.”
The ‘Hey you!’ will be available in large branches of Curry’s and Argos from the start of October.