Alexa Has Left the Building (spy bots)

She does the dumbest things. And I’m not letting her anywhere near my house. (Although I’m afraid Google’s built-in intelligence is in my Sony TV, I have to invoke her, and I won’t.)

The best things I’ve seen these personal AIs do is play a song, what’s the weather, and give me a recipe for hamburger meat and pasta. Things that a phone or laptop or tablet with internet access is actually pretty good at. And the behavior it encourages in kids is more of the problem (if you can get over the fact that these devices are ALWAYS LISTENING). They yell at her, “Alexa, play the fart song.” They never say “please” or “thank you.” I think a please/thank you app would do well on Alexa. And for the most part, she’s not all that great at understanding what you really want. They call it your intent.

When you say “Alexa, shuffle Led Zepplin” and she says, “Okay, shuffling songs by artists like Led Zepplin,” you’re now going to spend a few more cycles of cyber fun, “Alexa, stop!”

Well, never say never, but I’ve banned Alexa from my house. My Google-enabled tv? Well, she’s not listening, I have to press a button on the remote, which pisses me off every time I accidentally set her off. At least this one’s not spying on me 24/7. You know, if the Chinese build a TikTok AI device it’s not only going to be listening, taking notes, and building a profile of you and your friends, it’s never going to stop listening, no matter what you say. Well, you could unplug her.

more Short-Short Stories from John.