Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Hey Alexa, should I trust you?

Call me paranoid, but I'm not ready to embrace the new smart speaker technology. Those speakers have to listen to everything you say. And, it's hard for me to think of something I really want Alexa to do for me.

OK, wait. I do have an Amazon Fire stick, with a microphone remote. And I ask Alexa to find certain movies or TV shows. But sometimes I use the old search feature, where you enter the key words one letter at a time. And, yeah, that's not so much fun.

But still, I don't want any non-living thing listening to me. Call me suspicious, but there have to be nefarious ways of using this technology, ways that evil people haven't even thought of yet. Or maybe they have thought of it, and are plotting their take over of smart homes right now...

And are the evil people conspiring with the artificial intelligence? Like they would tell us.

I did ask Siri one time if she had ever met HAL. She was offended. She said she'd rather not talk about it.