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Television

Telly's Free Ad-Supported TV Will Use ChatGPT For Its Voice Assistant (theverge.com) 37

Posted by msmash from the fwiw dept.
Telly, the company giving people free 55-inch 4K TVs as long as they're willing to live with persistent ads on a second screen, is previewing a "Hey Telly" voice assistant that will be based on OpenAI's ChatGPT, at least at first. From a report: Users will interact with it on the TV's second (lower) screen, and the company says it "will come to know and recognize the Telly owner" over time and offer personalized recommendations to users. The company didn't say when the feature will be available. The existing SoundHound-powered voice assistant is limited to more mundane tasks like setting timers, changing picture modes, or answering simple questions. Telly also says other household users can opt to have the chatbot personalized to them, offering the example of a chatbot that knows you're on a vegetarian diet and keeps that in mind when you ask for restaurant recommendations.
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Telly's Free Ad-Supported TV Will Use ChatGPT For Its Voice Assistant More

Telly's Free Ad-Supported TV Will Use ChatGPT For Its Voice Assistant

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  • I think I saw one of these... (Score:5, Informative)

    by JoeDuncan ( 874519 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:30PM (#64144557)
    ... in the movie "Idiocracy"? Did I not?
    • Also "Telly" is a *stupid* name, they should have gone with "TeeVee"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )

        Especially if they want you to address it with "Hey!" There are a few girl's names which abbreviate to Elly, and hearing people telling their TVs to hate you can't be pleasant.

    • Re:I think I saw one of these... (Score:5)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:38PM (#64144585) Homepage

      ... in the movie "Idiocracy"? Did I not?

      Technology companies are indeed becoming more and more stupid in the ideas they get. Let's face it, we already have everything we need available, cheap TVs, cheap cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc. are easily available to almost anybody nowadays. Technology companies know this so they have to come up with silly gimmicks to try to stay relevant and making the same level of profit.

      Technology companies could probably all take a 75% hair cut and we'd still have all the technology we need available to replace a broken device.

      • Re:I think I saw one of these... (Score:5, Funny)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:43PM (#64144611)

        Technology companies could probably all take a 75% hair cut and we'd still have all the technology we need available to replace a broken device.

        I imagine this Telly [wikipedia.org] would agree ... :-)

      • Are there really THAT many people that enjoy talking to a machine, like a TV, etc?

        I know I'm getting old, but I don't think of myself as luddite....but I FUCKING HATE TALKING to machines.

        I easily blow a gasket at the phone systems that rather than let you press a button, make you talk to it.

        This really sucks if you're in a room of people, say at work in cube-villa...everyone can hear.

        At home with no one around, I just repeat over and over "Get me a FUCKING operator"....usually after a bit it will get me

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ls671 ( 1122017 )

          Are there really THAT many people that enjoy talking to a machine, like a TV, etc?

          I know I'm getting old, but I don't think of myself as luddite....but I FUCKING HATE TALKING to machines.

          That's simply part of the technology companies' strategy to make you buy new stuff while you already have everything you need. Basically, replace what is already working fine an efficiently with something else even if it's less efficient in order for people to keep on buying some new stuff at the same rate they used to in the last decades, especially since the first consumer PC came out when people were buying a new one every ~3 year. That gold rush is over for them. Most people don't need to buy new comput

        • I'm with you on this one. Only thing I own that's voice controlled is my dog.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      I think "Telly" is actually a reference to George Orwell's "Telescreen". Though Idiocracy is certainly their target market.

      The real dystopian future will have big screens *only* for advertising. Have you seen gen Z? An iPad is "big screen" for them.

    • Insert "Ow my balls" screenshot here:
      https://y.yarn.co/29d868ff-3e6... [y.yarn.co]

  • Telly owner (Score:3)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:36PM (#64144579)

    the company says it "will come to know and recognize the Telly owner" over time and offer personalized recommendations to users

    Note the important distinction between "owner" vs "users". But it's by now common to all such gear, no matter who pays for it.

  • Nope. (Score:4)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:38PM (#64144583)
    There is just enough NOPE on the world for this.
    Also they should call it FreeVee. (If you read the book, you will know.)

  • Pass (Score:3)

    by El Fantasmo ( 1057616 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:47PM (#64144619)

    Hard pass, soft pass and any other pass that keeps it away.

    If we only had sufficient personal privacy laws and a history of data trust and security, I be OK with this, but we don't and never have.

  • ChatGPT isn't exactly cheap. Of course neither is giving out custom TVs for 'free'. Their burn rate must be epic. Hopefully someone figures out how to jailbreak the TVs so they are usable after they go out of business. The dual-screens would be fun to tinker with.

    • Re:Free TVs now ChatGPT enabled assistant? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by packrat0x ( 798359 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @01:11PM (#64144679)

      QueCat 2.0 ?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Jhon ( 241832 )

        Score 2 points out of 5 for the que-cat reference. I still have mine.

        Full marks for those who thought "i-Opener".

        • I received an unsolicited CueCat from Forbes. I opened the box, read the license "agreement" and dropped the device into the trash without bringing it indoors.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        Hopefully. The hardware itself is interesting and I could see some cool uses for the 2nd screen. Turning them into e-waste would be a shame (and should be illegal). I'm 99% sure I have a QueCat somewhere around here. Came in handy when I putting all my DVDs into DVD Profiler back in the day.

    • The dual-screens would be fun to tinker with.

      You can accomplish a LOT of *disabling* with a screwdriver and a sharp knife...

    • Except they still own the TV's they ship you. Their terms of service are unique to say the least.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        When they go belly up I doubt whoever buys the assets will want to deal with trying to get them back.

        • Those may be the only assets worth buying. Or at least whoever buys them will try to abuse the situation further. It's a captive audience. Possibly their best chance of income is just lawsuits against people modding the equipment.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by EvilSS ( 557649 )
            It would probably cost them more to get them shipped back than they would be worth as used TVs.

  • Step 1: Get free TV (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @01:28PM (#64144723)

    Step 2: desolder the microphone

    • Good luck with that! It's probably some SMD MEMS shit totally globbed in epoxy...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jhon ( 241832 )

        Two can play at that game. Inject the mic with epoxy, freezing the diaphragm so it doesn't conduct sound.

        • The thing will probably put some words like "january suborbital denomination" on the ad screen and require you to say them to view any TV programs. Then they sell the speech captures.

          • The thing will probably put some words like "january suborbital denomination" on the ad screen and require you to say them to view any TV programs. Then they sell the speech captures.

            Christ man! Stop giving them horrible ideas! They're not smart enough to think of that shit on their own!!!

  • My conference room monitor was more expensive than a "smart" TV, but my living room time is too precious. If I'm in someone's house and they have this, my Tourettes syndrome will kick in and I'll announce the household's plans for meth production, illegal arms manufacturing, human trafficking etc. Digital existence (computing, entertainment) sound like a page out of George Orwell's 1984 with the difference being people volunteering to hand over their liberty. I suppose if folks welcome Google into their

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