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[Idea/Rant] Mycroft AI

I have never enabled any of the voice assistants in any of the device I own/owned, nor have I owned any voice assistant devices.

"WHATTTTTTT???"

Yes. I have never liked the idea of a company being able to use my voice to allow them to earn money.

Don't believe me? Use your personal assistant and ask it to search for something. The next time you visit any webpages that serves advertisements, keep an eye out for advertisements that was tailored to the search term you used.

While I understand that these companies need to keep our voices to improve their speech to text services, I am not comfortable with the fact that our voices can be used to serve us advertisements. Thus effectively earning money out of our voices.

Also, I agree that such devices are out there to make our lives easier, lazier, and cozier (in a good way). And they are versatile too! You can connect these devices to make your home a smart home.

It still does not change the fact that our voices are used to generate revenue.

Enter Mycroft. It is an open source voice assistant. You can install it on Linux, Android, or RPi 3B/3B+. Or you can also buy their Mark I or support the Mark II on Indiegogo. I loved the idea of an open source voice assistant that I can theoretically deploy on anything that runs Linux (given that it has enough resources).

Buying a Mark I or Mark II may sound like a great idea, but in my opinion, is a little pricey. I'm not saying that they are not good products, but I am a little reluctant to dish out that amount of money.

So I thought about it again - can I build a Mycroft from scratch using components definitely totally not sourced from China?

Well, thought about it. I will update again when I have the time to actually source and plan how to build one.

In the meantime, subscribe to the blog to be notified of new posts.

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