Doesn't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that private information? And publishing it in a news article definitely crosses a line.
Of course. The point is to snoop on people to make better "recommendations". Dystopian.
Then they get all that juicy "accidental activation" data on top of that.
Amazon is also a ecosystem. Alexa shows you notifications from Amazon like the status of a delivery. It's able to call others (great for family).
Amazon has also the fire kid tablet, fire TV etc.
And if I already use Amazon anyway I'm quite happy if Amazon would recommend me good products I like.
For plenty of things, Alexa is a very good UI.
It feels a little strange at first but I suspect (correctly or not) that he has sought and received permission from the daughter first. Although I did not see any direct statement. The daughter is 18 or so now (maybe, adding up the times).
The article is as much about the humdrumness of family life as about what Alexa and Amazon hears. I am glad I read it. Puts life (and some parts of technology in perspective).
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1) What sensitive information was published in this article besides some superficial listening preferences and some Alexa interactions we have all had? I'm not sure identifying the extent of the use of the prefix "omni" is particularly sensitive information. It's not like anyone was divulging personal preference by asking for definitions.
2) What makes you think the author didn't run it by their family before submitting the story?
Well of course, only Amazon should have this info 8-/
This whole thing is truly disturbing.
And the millennial expectation that "OF COURSE the monopolistic corps should know everything", is by far the most disturbing part of all.
When in the next decade or two, people find themselves truly and irreversibly f_cked by corporate over-dominance, it will largely be their own fault...
Your experiences are very different from my own. I struggle to remember meeting anyone that thought this. Mostly people are just apathetic.
And apathy is what caused all of history's greatest crimes to happen. No matter which political ideology, which skin color, which age.
As for the argument of "OF COURSE the monopolistic corps should know everything" itself... I kinda get it. Google at least used to provide a decent service to the end users in exchange for all the data, but they've gone completely off the rails the last few years.
Ever since Google fucked up social media by requiring verification with Google+ they've been pretty bad. That was 14 years ago.
Surely the perpetrators of the crimes should carry some blame?
As an example, the part of the article about questions his daughter has asked Alexa reflects things no different than ones you might type into a search engine. But he describes it as "Coco’s relationship with Alexa...", a term I'm confident he wouldn't use to describe her typing the same things into Google. You could maybe make the argument that it's different because people ask Alexa things they wouldn't just search for, but that potentially interesting distinction is unexplored by the author.
I'm not aware of anything covering this, but I think there's some interesting potential looking into how humans see technology as more human if they can communicate with it in a human way, regardless of whether or not it otherwise displays aspects of humanity. Generative AI falls into this category too I think. People view it as way more intelligent than it actually is because you can sort of converse with it like a human.
throwaway81523•4h ago
happytoexplain•4h ago
HPsquared•2h ago
Applies to TVs, fridges, anything really.
vezycash•3h ago
LoganDark•3h ago
Bender•46m ago