Hey…I’m over here hiding behind my computer. Shush, quiet please. I don’t want her to find me. I just need a little time to myself. Who, do you ask, am I hiding from? Alexa, my smart speaker or should I say the four Alexa smart speakers I have in my house. Oops, I think she heard me. Busted!
I’m pretty sure smart speakers were predicted by George Orwell in “1984” or “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. These two authors foresaw a future where unseen authorities took over and ran everyone’s everyday life. Maybe it was in a quatrain written by Nostradamus. Now that would be predictable. (See what I did there?)
It started as an innocent gift from some friends. One Christmas, they gave me a hockey puck. Well, it looked like a hockey puck but it wasn’t. It was a thing called an Echo Dot. For those of you who have had their head in the sand for the past 6 years, (and I really don’t blame you the way things are going in this country) an Echo Dot is a smaller version of the Amazon Echo Smart Speaker. The only difference between my dot and the original, larger version is the quality of speaker. I can see that dead eye look of yours. Could be due to the sand in your eyes but I’m pretty sure you have no idea what I’m talking about.
Amazon apparently didn’t have enough money from selling everything available on earth on-line, so they invented a speaker that is basically artificial intelligence. The purpose of the speaker…to make Amazon more money. Not just from people buying said speaker but also enabling the owner to order more useless things from Amazon. Can anyone say “vicious circle.”
Alright, I do admit it was a novelty at first. It’s kind of cool to have it play music for you, set timers for when you’re cooking, get the weather forecast for the day and have it tell you a very bad joke. My Alexa has made me even more lazy than I already was. Remember, I’m the guy who is looking forward to a TV remote that works based on my thoughts alone. No extra muscle movement required there. What Alexa has done is take over many of my everyday tasks making me even more of a couch potato than I already am. Instead of getting up and turning on and off the lights, I now just command Alexa to do it for me. Well, there goes my daily exercise routine. The only movement I get now is going to the refrigerator for a beer. Will that be next?
My smart speaker is also making my brain lazy. We all remember those spelling bees we had to do in grade school. I studied and tried to do my best, but I never could keep up with those snooty, smart kids who actually could retain things. For years I depended on dictionaries so I wouldn’t embarrass myself when writing. Once I got a computer, the part of my brain that retained what few words I could spell became useless. Spell check was the culprit and now it has an accomplice. If I can’t spell a word, I just ask Alexa.
You should see the first drafts of these articles I write. Every other word has a red line under it (misspelled) and the ones spell check can’t figure out, I just talk to Alexa. Spelling house, cat and beer are not as easy as you would think since my responsibility for spelling them correctly ended in 1989 with my first computer.
I do have some concerns about my Alexa and wonder sometimes if it is spying on me. It’s always on so is it listening in on my conversations? Who is listening on the other end? Is Alexa, a disembodied voice, or an agent for some nefarious organization? Maybe it’s just Jeff Bezos listening in trying to figure a way to get me to order more stuff I don’t need.
The other day there was a yellow light flashing on our Alexa and we had no idea what it meant. What could it be? Who better to ask than Alexa. Pretty obvious. When asked, we were told that the yellow light meant there was a notification for us. What could it be? We have learned that you can make calls from your Alexa so it might be someone trying to reach us. Alexa can send an alert from one side of the house to the other in an emergency. Maybe it was a long passed relative trying to communicate with us from beyond the grave. We were curious. We asked Alexa what the notification was and she said that it was time to order more Goji Berries. What the hell is a Goji Berry? They look like they’re made from petroleum products. My wife explained that she orders them from Amazon, they are healthy and help with her diet. After she heard the notification, she told Alexa to send two more bags. More cash for Mr. Bezos…or his ex-wife.
I do believe Alexa is gathering information on my wife and me. She just recently ordered a chair on-line. We talked about the chair and how much we liked it. The next day, I was getting ads for the exact chair on the different social media platforms I’m on. I did not look the chair up on-line, my wife did. Why would I start getting notifications about buying one. How Big Brother is that Mr. Orwell?
They now have Alexa with a video screen and you can use it to get opinions on how you dress. How invasive. Alexa can apparently check in on me any time it wants. What if I’m sitting around on a hot day in my boxers? I guess if Alexa or one of her agents decide to take a peek that’s their problem. Have you ever seen me in my boxers? Not a pretty sight. Guess I need to eat more goji berries. “Alexa, fetch me a beer.”
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