Alexa Asks Users for help. Thumbs-up or Thumbs-Down to Find the Truth

Amazon invites users to make an impact on Alexa improvements.
AI-based assistant Alexa launched the Alexa Answers program. With the help of this crowdsourced project, Alexa will boost its knowledge base. The beta version will be available in December.

What’s the deal?

Users can sort out questions in several categories and choose the topic they would like to share information, but of course, they have to be sure they are competent to the issue. Amazon made the whole process some kind of a game where users get points for answers. On the leaderboard, users can compete with their statements and check if it’s helpful by the number of times Alexa offered it as the correct one.

Alexa system doesn’t have the mechanism which audit or confirms the correctness of answers, so the fact-checking is in the spotlight. Thus, by thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons from customers, Amazon will submit the reliant one and set up ratings by its star system. The incorrect answers can be marked with a flag. All-in-all the program relies on honesty and desire to support proper functioning.

Amazon admitted that Alexa rotates between responses and chooses the most popular and useful, that gained enough feedback. The purpose of this program is to make assistant smarter and patch the gaps in its knowledge base. Amazon seems to believe that transparent intellectual cooperation will be much more successful than the work of contractors.