For an older guy, I’m actually pretty comfortable with the ‘internet of things.’
The internet of things (IoT) is what connects us. To each other, to our things. It even connects things to things without human interaction.
IoT is what allows you to pull up an app and set the thermostat at your house to a comfortable temperature before you get home. It allows us to do a bank transfer on our cell phones and shop online.
The question with all this connectivity always comes back to how much privacy are we giving up and who is collecting it?
In some cases we don’t care. The grocery store is indeed keeping track of what you buy. It’s how you get those custom coupons in the mail or email. (In my house, we apparently eat a lot of cheese.)
But who else knows? Does Chinese Intel know I just bought a Genuine Classic 500 Double-Hinged Corkscrew online?
$17.99, by the way.
That may seem expensive for a corkscrew, but don’t overlook the words ‘genuine’ and ‘classic.’ You don’t get those words for free, pal.
Besides having apps to connect us to our things, a lot of us use a home hub so that we don’t actually have to go to the trouble of picking up our phones and tapping an app. We can simply give the hub a voice command.
At the moment, our hub is Amazon’s Alexa.
Besides knowing jokes, recipes, and what I should wear on Halloween, one of the things Alexa does is notifications. When there’s a circling yellow light on her head, she got something to say to you.
Usually, the notification is that a package from Amazon has been delivered. Good info to know because it’s probably sitting on my front porch in full view of porch pirates.
Recently though I got a notification that shook me up a bit.
Noticing Alexa’s yellow halo, I asked what’s up and got this response:
“Your OfficeJet HP 4650 Series printer will need toner soon. Say ‘order toner’ to place an order.”
Whoa… whoa… whoa!
Since when did my printer and Alexa become friends?
What’s going on in this house when I’m not here? Does the thermostat know Alexa has a new boyfriend?
But let’s go back to the first question. How did lovely Alexa and printer boy become acquainted?
I didn’t connect them, did I? What would be the point? Anytime I’m printing something, I’m at my computer. Have I gotten too lazy to touch the ‘print’ button?
While bewildered - and somewhat intrigued - I basically just blew it off and didn’t respond to Alexa’s request to order toner.
Alexa is not to be brushed aside so casually. In my email the next day was this note:
Hello Allen Tibbetts,
You are receiving this message because you connected your HP OfficeJet 4650 printer to Alexa on 4/23/20. Alexa noticed that you will need to replace your HP 63 Black Toner soon, based on your HP OfficeJet 4650 series usage.
So the printer is having an affair with Alexa and telling her my secrets? Like how much I’m printing?
Is it also telling her what I’m printing?
Has Alexa now seen my 401k statement? And what else might be going on?
Is she secretly turning on the heat just to get the thermostat all hot and bothered, then turning on the air to freeze it out before she starts letting the printer whisper secrets to her?
Alexa can turn on our TV. Is she watching it while we’re not here?
Does she turn the living room lights off and on when she’s bored?
My house appears to no longer be a static structure but a living creature!
I’m leery, y’all. But here’s why I’m not yet too worried.
With nothing going on one day, I asked Alexa what I should do. She suggested we play a game of Truth Or Dare.
Game on!
For a dare, she told me to pretend I was crying for 10 seconds. I did. Then she turned off. No response, nothing else. She just shut off.
I figured it was something I did wrong, so I tried again.
This time she dares me to whinny like a horse. I give it my best shot. When I’m finished, no response. No “well done!” No congratulations. She just shuts down.
That’s not how this game works. But it’s got to be something I’m doing wrong. Let’s try one more time.
“Alexa, let’s play truth or dare,” I say. And this time, I’ll ask for a truth.
For a truth she asked, “Can you touch your the end of your nose with your tongue?”
No, I can’t.
This time, she responds. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that.” And once again, she’s done. Just shuts off.
Amazon admits they employ listeners to improve the interaction between Alexa and the user to make Alexa more responsive, more life-like.
I can only imagine some listeners rolling in the floor laughing and wondering to each other, ‘let’s see what other stupid things we can make people do.’
Alexa, like Siri and OK Google, is called AI, artificial intelligence. That’s about right, and it’s the one thing I have in common with them all.
Between us, any sign of intelligence is indeed artificial.