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.

NFL and Video Truth

The NFL had a tough week last week.  Video was released of Ray Rice cold-cocking his then fiancee in an elevator in February of 2014.  Suddenly, Rice was cut from the Ravens and suspended indefinitely from the league.

Columnist Leonard Pitts shared some insights about the team's and league's actions.  He notes that the recent video release provided no new information.  Days after the assault, video was released of Rice dragging his woman out of the elevator.  Rice acknowledged that she was unconscious because he had hit her.  The recently released video only gave pictures to Rice's account of the events before the elevator door opened.

The league should have acted earlier, the team should have fired him sooner, etc., etc.  But notice what this chronology of events says about our society.

• We believe it when we see it.
• We don't care about evil unless we see it.
• Words and admission of guilt do not move us to action.
• Emotions from pictures stir us more than knowledge of wrong.
• Authorities stand against evil only when they are covering their reputations.

All this suggests that our society does not stand against evil unless it moves us emotionally.  If we can sterilize evil, so that it no longer stirs our emotions, we can easily live with it.

Video cameras are everywhere we go now.  This may be good for justice.  But I wish we did not need a picture to stir our hearts against evil.