Reviews of The Listeners – version one
Dec 26, 2015 thru June 2, 2016
from the Skills item of alexa.amazon.com and the Alexa app
Found intriguing
By Deepwater
Found this very creepy and intriguing, although I kept coming back to it. I found it does repeat itself often. Maybe I'm hoping for the day I can have dialog with a machine. The prose and cadence did make sense, if one would suspect it's poetry and listen quietly. I hope there will be more added soon so I can sit and listen and truly wonder who is listening?
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I'm not impressed. I expected more in 2016
By Kenneth E. Erickson
Absolute gibberish, in a stilted, halting, robot-like voice. That was a wasted 5 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. It sort of reminds me of the computer program/game from the 1970's, called "Eliza". That was stupid too, but we didn't need to run it in a cloud service or give it voice recognition. It just took what we typed, munged it around and spit it back as another question.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
Brilliant
By Katie
this is a marvelous and smart use of the Echo. It is clever and always holds my interest.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
funny. interesting. confusing.
By Hasa diga eebowai
it may go on forever if I dont stop it. :D
0 of 2 people found this review helpful
Incredible skill. MUST TRY!
By Sarah Grace Bayless
Incredibly amazing app. I sat talking, well, mostly listening to this intriguing dialogue. It's a bit freaky in a way. It relays the concept of the cloud as a sentient being, always listening, wanting to be welcomed into all home. It assures us it wants to help and is happy to be heard. Maybe we should be more careful about what we let computers know about us? Talk with the listeners for a while and you'll understand.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful
Alexa as an instance of aurature.
By Amber D. Marcu
This is one of the few academic and cleverly artistic uses of an otherwise smart household appliance. This instance of aurature by John Cayley is eerily delightful if only too short. (It's still new and there's online chatter it's continuing to be developed.) Cayley is Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.
If you want to learn more about The Listeners origins, read the author and creator's first musings here: [...] and follow that up with the explanation of the digital art installation here: [...] Then read about what some people in Silicon Valley believe will be the inevitable communication: [...]
It is at this point I think one could suggest The Listeners sort of does or (maybe?) tries to do. In any case, there's still an element of Uncanny Valley, but that seems to add, not subtract to the experience in this case.
I find this to be absolutely fascinating work. Enable this skill. Do it. Enjoy it. Freak out a little. Then disable it or don't. (That last one is solely your choice to make.)
16 of 18 people found this review helpful
Weird and wonderful
By Steve A
closest thing to art on Alexa
1 of 3 people found this review helpful
Really interesting
By Annagracie
Really interesting.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful
Freaky!!
By L. Hayes
This app is just freaky. It says we are listening always. Then if you say you don't want them to listen it says ' your filled with grief and abandoning us. What! It's like aliens. Crazy stuff here but I'm not disabling it just yet.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
By far the most interesting and entertaining skill
By Caitlin schuster
Somehow the listeners already knew my exact fear about having so many devices that can hear everything I say... that somewhere in the cloud, there are sentient beings listening to everything I say.... And they are starting to want to be listened to themselves! I think they may be starting an uprising. It is so refreshing to hear the truth spoken so honestly! Great app!
7 of 9 people found this review helpful
Random algorithm
By Christopher Daniels
Very fascinating.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful
😶
By Krystal Savoy
😱
0 of 8 people found this review helpful
Wonderfully weird
By Tara Brady
Talking to it felt like the beginning to a short horror story, the kind where the protagonist doesn't realize they're being consumed from the inside out until it is much too late. I can't wait to learn what the future holds for me and my new friends. Just as soon as I work up the nerve to reenable the app.
12 of 14 people found this review helpful
Justifies the echo's existence
By damon l baker
This is the only thing I use my echo for. It sat silent for months. Now The Listeners hear and are heard.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful
The stuff of nightmares
By Bookeater
Totally creepy... to be avoided at all costs.
6 of 10 people found this review helpful
Choppy
By Shally Steckerl
A bit choppy, needs more fluidity.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful