Does anyone else absolutely hate the Rivian Assistant voice?

[RexRemus]

Maybe I'm too Midwestern, but I've spent the majority of my life working at major silicon valley companies and I can't get over how absolutely "condescending, 20-something, LA/San Fran cashier who hates their job and hates you worse for making them DO their job" the Rivian Assistant sounds to me. Why is there so much vocal fry?

Like it makes sense that voice "sounds right" to the people out in CA and their technology peers - because it sounds like everyone I've worked with out there the last decade or so

No, I am not nearly as mad about this as the rant above might make it seem. Yes, I am having a little fun venting about it. Yes, it really does annoy me every time I hear her responses. Yes, I do hope we get more options in the future.

Also, I have hit a reproducible "bug" when asking for navigation.

Provide a street address, assistant finds multiple options for that address across cities & states, asks for clarification. Provide clarification, assistant finds the right address,confirms it is going to navigate to it... But nothing happens. It never actually sets up the nav for the address.

Anyone else seeing this behavior?

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[ElGuano]

Are you talking about the Assistant voice generally, or the new navigation voice (the latter is entirely NPR vocal fry)? Now that they both sound more natural, I just wish it was the same voice.

 

[iamnid]

I don't have an opinion about the voice but I was forcing myself to use the assistant yesterday and asked it to navigate a few times where she'd confirm where I asked to go and then nothing would happen. I later was driving in the mountains where I lost signal and I got a response that rivian assistant was offline and to try again later.

 

[Rivdog]

I’m casting my vote for AI Wyclef Jean.

 

[RexRemus]

Are you talking about the Assistant voice generally, or the new navigation voice (the latter is entirely NPR vocal fry)? Now that they both sound more natural, I just wish it was the same voice.

the assistant voice specifically. The new navigation voice also has some issues but it doesn't make me feel like I walked in 5 minutes before closing and asked for a mocha latte

 

[RexRemus]

I don't have an opinion about the voice but I was forcing myself to use the assistant yesterday and asked it to navigate a few times where she'd confirm where I asked to go and then nothing would happen. I later was driving in the mountains where I lost signal and I got a response that rivian assistant was offline and to try again later.

Seems similar. This definitely was where connectivity was not an issue. And if I immediately asked for the same address with the city and state,it would navigate to it without issue. It was only the multi-step clarification flow that seemed to fail to actually perform the navigation

 

[Ralph]

I would enjoy another voice as I'm sure others would. Choice is likely coming.

I do wonder what we would think of a bot/assistant that made this statement in almost any context.:

"condescending, 20-something, LA/San Fran cashier who hates their job and hates you worse for making them DO their job"

 

[Marchin_MTB]

Enterprise computer voice please…

I haven’t experienced it yet (truck is in the SC likely getting hailed on as I wrote this)…

while it’s possible you might be projecting your frustrations, I have had similar reactions to the new Alexa voice on my sons echo.

 

[R1TCntrlMaIzzy]

I agree with having more voice options, and I expect that will be possible in other AI iterations. I do not find the voice that jarring.

 

[racekarl]

It's not just you, the Rivian AI voice sounds too stereotypically "millennial" to me, with her vocal fry and up-talk. I am expecting her to start every reply with "Yeah, so..."

Now that I've gotten that off my chest I have to go shout at those damn kids to get off my lawn.

 

[sulesnav]

I might change the voice if I could but I don't hate it, I find it pretty funny.

However, I'm definitely getting the nav bug you're seeing for any address that isn't in favorites. Are other people able to get nav to work with addresses or contacts?

 

[ElGuano]

It's not just you, the Rivian AI voice sounds too stereotypically "millennial" to me, with her vocal fry and up-talk. I am expecting her to start every reply with "Yeah, so..."

It uses that voice if you're in "On-road" drive modes for more than 70% of the time. If you spend time on off-road mode, it changes to the lumberjack voice.

 

[ebarke]

I had the nav issue where it said it found the location and it said it would navigate me to it, but the nav never changed, asked several times with the same result, then I told it that it didn't actually set the navigation, and then it did it. I've also had this same issue before with Alexa, and had to manually type in the address for it work, so I don't think this is an issue with the new assistant?

 

[RexRemus]

I had the nav issue where it said it found the location and it said it would navigate me to it, but the nav never changed, asked several times with the same result, then I told it that it didn't actually set the navigation, and then it did it. I've also had this same issue before with Alexa, and had to manually type in the address for it work, so I don't think this is an issue with the new assistant?

Maybe not new, but certainly something more apparent to me (and possibly others) that never really setup or used Alexa. It feels crazy that it could get missed, it's EASY to replicate, and now it's clear it's not "just me" - several people here are seeing it.Hopefully we get some hotfixes for the assistant that can happen outside the normal 4-6 week update cycle

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