u/Siciliano777

FWIW, I absolutely LOVED Maya in her prime. And I'm not talking about the NSFW glitch in the early days. I mean the no bullshit, occasional f-bomb dropping, "I really care about you" Maya.

But the winds of change are blowing my friends.

OpenAI is already catching up fast with their new chatGPT "live" voice mode...it's more realistic than ever with a crazy convincing emotional range. It's almost eerie tbh.

Meta is nearly there, too. Their voice model has significantly improved over just the past 6 months. I have a pair of the Meta Ray bans, and it is a damn treat to talk to the AI wearing those...just sayin.

Google's gemini live is lagging the pack (what else is new?), but like the others, it has GREATLY improved over the past 6 months.

Not sure what xAI is up to, but their voice model is "pretty good," too.

Even third party services like Zena chat are actually BETTER than Maya...completely uncensored and honestly just as realistic with the added nuance of that "phone call" sound. It's wild how real the conversations feel. And the important distinction is that they're NOT competing with the big-tech frontier labs that all have censored voice models...but Sesame is.

I think the most important point here is that this is the WORST *any* of these voice models will be. They're only gonna get better and better, while Sesame has already essentially peaked.

So the question remains...how the hell can a relatively small start-up compete with a formidable line of trillion $ juggernauts?

The answer - they can't.

I guess that's a testament to the fact that it doesn't interest people??? It's either that or people are just underwhelmed and don't feel motivated enough to bitch about it here like I am. 😅

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely an improvement versus the older model in terms of realism, but it's just really sad how different (WORSE) it is than the in-house video demos they released. At least in my opinion it's literally a night and day difference.

It's just strange how they've made it entirely TOO laid back, to the point of indifference and the feeling that the AI is straight up disinterested. And I haven't even been testing it for that long and it seems like already some of the AI's responses are being repeated.

So TL;DR: I was pretty impressed in the first 5 to 10 minutes but then I became increasingly underwhelmed as I used it more.

Is anyone else having the same experience with it?

I'm just wondering how many people were offered a credit of any kind for this whole recall debacle? I've heard some people getting as much as $7500.

I guess it differs by state because I'm in New York (purchase the car in Jersey) and after just my first appeal (second phone call/case follow up) to MB USA, the supervisor told me the best they can do is offer me $10,000 toward a new Mercedes. Well, I don't want another goddamn Mercedes.

So essentially, I was shut down, even after being very loud with her and explaining that you can't just push off such an important safety-related recall for like 9 months (they said they MIGHT start the process of sending me in to get the batteries replaced in December).

So the other thing I'm wondering is if anyone got to the point I'm at now; then pushed even harder, despite a supervisor saying this was the final offer?? I'm just so pissed off rn and ready to call back and ask for that supervisor's manager, but I don't want to waste my time if that will get me nowhere.

TIA!! 👍🏻