You say artificial intelligence, I say Alexa. 

 

This revolutionary device has remodelled lifestyles and brought significant changes in the small things we do. Amazon’s Echo, Alexa, is a voice controlled personal assistance with a physical presence. This excellent innovation is 20cm tall, contains wifi, seven microphones, connection to the cloud as well as two speakers. It hangs ever so subtly on your house wall and waits for you to give a command which it will immediately abide to. Obedience is no foreign term for our dear Alexa.

Sunday morning obviously comes with exhaustion from Saturday night. A warm cosy bed and tired legs wouldn’t allow you to get up easily on a Sunday morning. Don’t worry, Alexa can turn on your lights for you. Moreover, it can guide you to cook your favorite dish without you having to struggle to follow up with youtube tutorials. You can call Alexa your DJ too, just say a command and your ears will be blessed. It will also inform you if it’s too rainy to go on a road trip or too sunny for an outdoor picnic. That is not it, obviously. Alexa can be your tutor as well when you’re stuck on a math problem and will give you the meaning of complicated words you come across while you’re deep down into a book and do not want to take out your phone to actually search for the meaning. Furthermore it can control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system. A growing list of built-in capabilities and third-party skills means that your Alexa device keeps improving the longer you own it. You say Alexa, you get your job done in a few seconds.

However, things aren’t as easy as they seem to be. There is a more complicated side attached to the world famous ‘‘Alexa”. On one hand we enjoy the comfort and easy accessibility that comes with devices like Alexa, and on the other hand we are willingly giving up our privacy; be it our shopping preferences, the places we visit, the actors we follow or what our favorite dish is. This doesn’t end here. While you’re giving up all above mentioned and related information, your unmonitored physical activity or everyday conversations that aren’t really meant for such devices do not go unheard or un noticited. It’s all there, available for access while you sit and talk to a friend in a living room thinking it’s only you both present and listening to the words of the other.

This situation can be explained by the director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory, Ronal Arkin. He believes that technology has both the good and the bad and comes with the pros and cons. To quote him: “..you can’t stop the tide but can choose whether to stay out, paddle or plunge in.” Quite similar is thecase when we talk about Alexa.

For instance, let’s talk about Alex’s listening habits.  When you issue a command,your recording is kept with Amazon and the response you get is tied to your account. You can access and listen to them whenever you want and anyone who has a hold of your phone can very easily go through whatever you’ve said to Alexa and take a ride into your life’s happenings.

This isn’t it.The information that this devices collects by the interactions you have with it helps Amazon shape its advertisements for you. To elaborate on this point, let’s start from where you order a toothpaste by giving a command to Alexa.  The brand that you choose will be one way or the other offered to you again eg. Alexa could offer you to buy a mouthwash of the similar brand. Therefore, this helps to build a better profile of you and ends up making more money from you by creating a clear cut picture of your preferences and shopping habits. Alexa will provide you with a wide range of services but in exchange for the services you get, your privacy will be compromised.

Therefore,  you have to choose for yourself: artificial intelligence has made us smarter by the technological advancements or dumber by forcing us to bend down to the idea of convenience.

 

[1] https://www.cnet.com/how-to/amazon-echo-the-complete-list-of-alexa-commands/

[2] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608571/alexa-understand-me/

[3] https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-AI-is-Amazon-Alexa