Will MyCroft Compete with Best AI Assistants?

Had seen Mtcroef some time ago, in 2015, then also touting its Open Source.  Still has a long way to go to compete.   Will try to get a demo of it in context.  I think its unlikely the privacy issues will make a difference as they become patched.

Can an open-source AI take on Amazon and Google?
Mycroft certainly hopes so.

By Nicole Lee, @nicole in Engadget

It's only been a few years since Amazon unveiled the Alexa-powered Echo, but since then, smart speakers have become a major consumer-electronics category. Key to its success is the notion of the always-on virtual assistant, which other companies like Apple and Google have adopted as well. In fact, not only has Google made Assistant the driving force behind its Android smartphones, it has launched its own line of Echo rivals.

But underneath all of this technology is the potential risk to your privacy. In just the past few months, news reports have uncovered a series of alarming revelations that companies like Amazon, Google and even Apple have been listening in on conversations without permission. The data that they collect are also often stored indefinitely unless you explicitly delete it or turn off the recording ability. The companies have since responded that the listening of information only occurs to a small percentage of its customers and that the data are anonymized. While that may be true, it's disconcerting that none of this is transparent, and that the customer is rarely in complete control of their data.

An easy way to avoid this, of course, is to not partake in this technology at all. But a company based in Lawrence, Kansas, is working on an alternative solution: a virtual assistant aimed at preserving privacy and that's also open source. It's called Mycroft, and though you may not have heard of it, the company's been around since 2015.

"At the time, the only real voice technology that was in broad production was Siri," said Mycroft CEO and founder Joshua Montgomery to Engadget. Amazon had announced Alexa in November of 2014, but it was still in private beta when the idea for Mycroft came about. "We thought, you know, hey, this is the type of technology that could be really groundbreaking in the future. And scarcely a year later [in 2016], Amazon launched their Super Bowl ad, and then Google got in on the game, and suddenly it's the fastest-growing segment of the technology market."  .... "