Would you give ChatGPT access to manage your smart home?

Would you give ChatGPT access to manage your smart home?
Published in : 28 Feb 2023

Would you give ChatGPT access to manage your smart home?

Josh.ai's proof-of-concept video demonstrates how AI language models could eventually give your voice assistant for your smart home the intelligence it deserves. 

Today, you can ask Alexa to turn on the lights or Siri to tell you the temperature in your bedroom, and sometimes they will. Or, you might hear, "You have 15 things called lights. Which one would you like to control?" The temperature in Kathmandu right now is 53 degrees. But what if your voice assistant was always right and could also give "intelligent" answers to vague questions like "I've had a hard day. What's a good way to relax?" For example, by closing the blinds, turning down the lights, adjusting the temperature, and putting some Netflix shows on hold?

Alex Capecelatro, co-founder of the Josh.ai home automation system, says that this is what voice assistants that use new AI language models could do. Josh.ai has already begun using OpenAI's ChatGPT to build a prototype integration. In this proof-of-concept video, Capecelatro asks the Josh assistant to open the blinds, turn off the music, and tell him the weather (controlling three things at once is a capability Josh already has). He then gives more natural voice commands to the smart home, like "I'm making a video; it's kind of dark in here." The voice assistant responds, a little awkwardly, by turning up the lights in the room.

Using AI language models to understand natural language could be a way to make smart home control better. Capecelatro thinks it is the future. He says, "We're trying to see how well we can make it so that you can control your environment in a more natural and intuitive way."

Today, voice assistants usually need very specific language and often mix up basic smart home commands with information requests. This can lead to frustrating and sometimes useless answers. When Capecelatro and Tim Gill, who founded Quark, started Josh.ai in 2015, they wanted to solve this problem. Its name-giving voice assistant tries to be good at controlling all of your connected devices, no matter how you ask.

Credit: theverge