the times | Friday August 28 2020 2GM 3
News
Smart speakers may be powered by
some of the world’s most impressive
artificial intelligence but as many
people will know they are often useless
at picking up accents.
That may be about to change after
Amazon teamed up with the Count-
down star Susie Dent to train its Alexa
virtual assistant to better understand
British dialects. The tech company
worked with Dent, a lexicographer and
etymologist, to expand Alexa’s vocabu-
lary, introducing the virtual assistant to
hundreds of new regional words.
As a result, Amazon says that Alexa
can understand phrases ranging from
“how do?” to “toodle pip” to “nummit”.
Other new strings to her bow include
“looances” for snacks, “kecks” and
“trews” for trousers and “famished” and
“Hank Marvin” for starving.
The virtual assistant was trained on
regional ways of saying everything
Him too? Actress linked to third mogul
An electrician’s daughter
from Kent has been
linked to the downfall of
two Hollywood figures,
writes Ben Hoyle
that he promised her film roles in
exchange for sex. One of them, sent by
Kirk in 2015, read: “You’re very busy I
know but when we were in that motel
having sex u said u would help me and
when u just ignore me like you’re doing
now it makes me feel used.”
Other messages suggested that Kirk
felt she had been exploited to help to
seal a $450 million production deal in
2013 between Warner Bros and RatPac-
Dune Entertainment, a company
owned by the director Brett Ratner and
the billionaire James Packer, whom she
reportedly also dated. She texted Rat-
ner complaining that she had been
“used as the icing on the cake for your
finance deal with Warner Bros”, adding,
“It’s gross what you all did to me!!!”
Kirk, who had Asperger’s syndrome
diagnosed as a child, did land small
parts in two Warner Bros films: Ocean’s
8 and How to Be Single. Mr Tsujihara
resigned on March 18 last year after the
leaked messages were published. His
lawyer said: “Mr Tsujihara had no dir-
ect role in the hiring of this actress.”
Kirk’s latest role is in the horror film
The Reckoning, directed by her British
fiancé, Neil Marshall, who also directed
several episodes of Game of Thrones
and has forcefully denied being part of
any extortion effort.
Last night it was reported that he had
been dropped by his agency Verve.
Kirk’s lawyers and her PR represent-
atives have declined to comment.Armed with talent, striking looks and
one invaluable industry contact, a
young electrician’s daughter from Kent
left for Los Angeles eight years ago
dreaming of movie stardom.
Instead, Charlotte Kirk, 28, has at-
tained more exclusive renown at the
centre of a real-life drama that has riv-
eted Hollywood for the past fortnight.
Last week it emerged that the bit-
part actress and former model, previ-
ously known chiefly for her role in the
downfall of the studio boss Kevin Tsuji-
hara last year after he admitted a fling
with her, was also the woman in the
extramarital affair that toppled
another Hollywood mogul: Ron Meyer,
the former head of Universal Pictures.
The FBI is believed to have begun
looking into blackmail claims made by
Mr Meyer and this week Kirk was also
romantically linked to a third industry
heavyweight: Steve Tisch, who pro-
duced Forrest Gump and co-owns the
New York Giants American football
team. The Hollywood Reporter claimed
that he had a brief relationship with her
in 2012, the year she moved to Califor-
nia following a meeting in London
with Mr Meyer at a film premiere.
She was 19 at the time and told Mr
Meyer at the event hosted by the
Hollywood Foreign Press Associa-
tion that she was going to Los Ange-
les. He is said to have urged her to
call him when she was in town
and after she did they went
on to have what Mr Meyer
described last week as a
“very brief and consensu-
al” affair.
Mr Meyer, 75, co-
founded the Holly-
wood talent agency
CAA in 1975 and was
one of the most re-
spected and longest-
serving executives in
the industry before his
departure last week
from his post as vice-
chairman of the media
conglomerate NBC Uni-
versal. He left after
Alexa says ‘Aye, pet’ to more dialects
from hello and thank you to words for
dinner, tea, nonsense, delicious, mum,
dad, children and even woodlice.
Dent, 55, who has appeared in the
“dictionary corner” of the TV show
Countdown since 1992, said she was de-
lighted to be able to teach Alexa “the
glorious quirks of British language”.
She added: “Nowhere is the diversity
of English vocabulary more apparent
than in Britain. Our local languages are
constantly evolving and changing.
“With technology getting smarter all
the time, perhaps one day assistants like
Alexa will understand everything from
‘dabberlick’ [tall and skinny] to ‘crum-
psy’ [grumpy].”
A survey by Amazon found that
more than a third of people said they
struggled to comprehend British dia-
lects, with 52 per cent admitting that
they just nodded along when they did
not understand.
As part of the continuing improve-
ment of Alexa, Amazon uses language
experts at its Cambridge DevelopmentCentre to train the assistant on the vari-
ations of British speech, including the
rolling “R” in Scottish accents and long
vowels in the south of England.
Dennis Stansbury, the Alexa UK
manager, said: “Unlike us, Alexa cannot
feign understanding through nodding,
so in the instance Alexa mishears a
word or question, the team have
worked hard on ways to get better at
understanding these, like Alexa asking
follow-up questions to clarify what you
might mean.”Tom Knowles
Technology Correspondent
6 Amazon has released a fitness wrist-
band that can listen to the emotion in
users’ voices as well as measure their
body fat. The Halo’s “tone” function
uses machine learning to analyse the
wearer’s voice, for example allowing
them to find out if their mood changes
towards their family after a stressful
work call. A camera can also create 3D
scans of its user and analyse their body
fat percentage. The device is being
launched in the US for $99 (£74) and a
monthly fee of $3.99.Charlotte Kirk
toppled Ron Meyer,
far left, and Kevin
Tsujihara, and is said
to have had a brief
relationship as a
teenager with Steve
Tisch, 71, centreRACHEL MURRAY/GETTY IMAGES
admitting that he had made a private
financial settlement “under threat, with
a woman outside the company who had
made false accusations against me”.
Kirk signed a nondisclosure agree-
ment last year in exchange for $2 mil-
lion to be paid in four instalments,
according to the Los Angeles Times.
That failed to contain Mr Meyer’s
secret, however. “Other parties learnt
of the settlement and have continuous-
ly attempted to extort me into paying
them money... and to publish false
allegations about me,” he wrote in his
resignation statement to staff.
Mr Meyer did not name the woman
with whom he had an affair but she was
widely speculated in industry media
reports as being Kirk. Mr Meyer was
weighing up whether to pursue legal
action against her for potentially violat-
ing the terms of her settlement, Variety
reported.
NBC Universal has begun an investi-
gation of its own, hiring outside lawyers
to look into “Ron’s behaviour”, includ-
ing the question of whether he used
company funds or resources. The com-
pany said there was an investigation
but gave no details.
Kirk first achieved Tin-
seltown notoriety when a
scandal erupted involv-
ing her, Mr Tsujihara —
then chief executive of
Warner Bros — and a
flurry of texts implyingEasyjet tried to move woman
away from Orthodox Jews
A British-Israeli woman is suing Easy-
jet after staff asked her to move seats
because of objections from strictly
Orthodox Jewish men who refused to
sit next to a female passenger.
Melanie Wolfson, 38, was asked to
move twice on a flight from Tel Aviv to
London. She is claiming almost £15,
compensation in a lawsuit filed on her
behalf by the Israel Religious Action
Centre based in Jerusalem. Ms Wolfson
is also asking that the airline ban its
cabin crew from asking women to
switch seats because of their gender.
According to the lawsuit Ms Wolfson
paid extra for an aisle seat on her flight
last October but a strictly Orthodox
Jewish man and his son asked her to
move. Ms Wolfson said she was “insult-
ed and humiliated”. “It was the first time
in my adult life that I was discriminatedagainst for being a woman,” she told
Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. “I would
not have had any problem whatsoever
switching seats if it were to allow mem-
bers of a family or friends to sit together,
but the fact that I was being asked to do
this because I was a woman was why I
refused.” A flight attendant offered Ms
Wolfson a free hot drink to switch seats.
Two months later, on another Easy-
jet flight, Ms Wolfson was asked to
move by two strictly Orthodox men.
She refused. She complained to the air-
line on both occasions but when it
failed to respond she decided to sue for
violation of Israeli law, which prohibits
discrimination against customers
because of gender.
In a statement Easyjet said: “Whilst it
would be inappropriate to comment, as
this matter is currently the subject of
legal proceedings, we do not discrimi-
nate on any grounds.”Ali Mitib