If you’re pinching the bridge of your nose between thumb and forefinger with eyes closed, don’t worry because I beat you to it and am already feeling a headache coming on just thinking about this. Jeremy Dick of MovieWeb and many others have already commented on this new and somewhat disturbing deal that Samuel L. Jackson has made to become the new voice of Alexa, and the possibilities are about as insane as you might think they are. Apparently he’s only one of many actors that are going to be adding their voice to this system in the coming future but at the moment he is the only one that’s being presented for an added 99 cents. That’s the introductory price, while the voice package will run $4.99. Oh, and as you might have already guessed there is the option to allow him to use profanity while responding to the user. Just think of it, for another dollar you can have Samuel L. Jackson telling you in an expletive-laden rant that your response or command has been accepted and is being fulfilled. Oy vey.
Joey Nolfi from Entertainment Weekly has made light of this as most anyone will when thinking of how one might hear Jackson’s voice coming from an Alexa and what might be said occasionally. Of course it’s easy to think that the profanity will be toned down depending on either the settings or the package perhaps, but you can easily imagine that some people want to hear his more colorful language just for the novelty of it. For a lot of his career Jackson has been known for what comes out of his mouth, be it words of wisdom or the constant stream of expletives that have allowed him to become so widely known throughout Hollywood. The 70-year old is only the first to come upon the creation of this idea, but you can imagine just who they might manage to get later on down the line.
The idea that this might inspire those in charge to come up with some of the same voices they did in one of the last round of Superbowl commercials when they used Rebel Wilson, Anthony Hopkins, Gordon Ramsay, and a few others as mentioned by Kelly Tyko of USA Today. If you can imagine Jackson’s voice coming out in his acerbic best then just imagine what it might be like to hear someone else just as famous and just as distinctive. Imagine Anthony Hopkins coming through in the voice of Hannibal Lecter, or Gordon Ramsay berating you over something you might have forgotten or neglected to do. At times it almost feels as though we’re letting technology take over a little TOO much, but a lot of people would call this another part of natural progression, no matter that it means that we have an in-home assistant that’s basically a memory device or something to tell us the kind of data that we could get on our own, or turn on functions that we can do on our own as well.
A lot of people might say that becoming lazy because of a new voice on Alexa is a big stretch, and it is to be perfectly honest. It doesn’t matter whose voice is coming out of one’s Alexa when it comes to the fact that technology is giving us more options on how to live a simpler existence. But is that really what we need? Some people desperately want an Alexa but can’t afford it, while those that have it seem to use it for very few things or use it all the time and don’t have to do nearly as much within their household, or work to remember various things that they program Alexa for. It’s true that the device has limits and can’t do absolutely everything, but it does enough that it makes life a little easier than it needs to be at times since taking care of mundane tasks such as Alexa is programmed for sometimes makes little to no sense. It’s an argument that doesn’t have a lot of pull since people are going to want the brand new technology that continues to come out no matter who says what, but now that we’re going with celebrity voices on the devices in our home it just seems to be getting a little more ridiculous.
Like it or not Jackson’s voice will likely be gracing the home of many Alexa users eventually as some will no doubt want this package for the sheer fun of it, while others might think that it’s the trendy thing to do. You can’t help but wonder why this is coming out, but at the same time with the many trends that seem to come and go these days it’s not all that difficult to see how people would want it to happen.
Follow Us
