It's like playing Zork all over again.

A lisp compiler in a voice assistant would seem like an improvement in that the user could define objects and then express the actions to be performed in the same room. But these assistants seem to drop objects between commands making them hard to program conversationally.

I guess a list like language would be ideal and the pauses would be like parentheses

But with the added complexity that sometimes the speech-to-text will just crap out completely.

Alexa, turn on lights

...I don't know how to do that

Alexa, turn lights on

...What do I turn the lights with?

Alexa, activate lights

...I don't know what you mean

...It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

ALEXA TURN ON THE DAMN LIGHTS

...I don't know the word "lights"

...Oh no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a grue!

** You have died **

Siri, turn on bathroom lights.

Downstairs or upstairs bathroom?

Downstairs.

Sorry, I didn’t understand. Downstairs it upstairs bathroom?

Downstairs bathroom.

Sorry, I didn’t understand. Downstairs it upstairs bathroom?

Cancel.

Ok. Cancelling.

Siri turn on downstairs bathroom lights.

(Turns off all lights)

For me, about once a week it's

"hey siri?"

(no response, no icon),

"hey siri?"

(no response, no icon),

"hey siri?" (louder)

(no response, no icon),

"hey siri?" (louder and slower)

(no response, no icon),

reboot iphone 13 pro

"hey siri?"

works

“Did you mean ‘bathroom LED’ or ‘bathroom’?”

Because god help you if your device names are similar to your room names…

I’ve taken to naming my lights things like Greg, The Beacons, etc.

And I added scenes so I can say “Gondor calls for aid” and the beacons will light.

Yes. And it may be worth noting that Zork is literally something like 50 year old parser technology.

Not to take away from your point (I'd like the magic list too) but to some degree, this can be worked around using Shortcuts. If you use inputs, Siri will prompt for them which is a bit slow but you could even use a dictate text and parse yourself if desired.

I highly doubt there is "a" magic list. I'll bet the magic list changes constantly.

I noticed a drop in usability about the time they went with ML.

Same with the predictive keyboard, it feels more random now.

i don’t know that you can do exactly all these things, but is this the use case for custom routines in the amazon ecosystem.

you great the prompt and add one or more actions to take.