https://archive.ph/fu2u2 One family's story where nothing too dramatic happens, but there's a reveal. I thought it rather odd to go from post-it notes to an Alexa in every room instead of using a...
One family's story where nothing too dramatic happens, but there's a reveal. I thought it rather odd to go from post-it notes to an Alexa in every room instead of using a mobile phone for reminders.
From the article:
“Roschelle, here’s your reminder,” Sapphire announced at 8:05 A.M. “Leave the house to take Cece to school.”
These alerts were what had persuaded Roschelle to buy an Alexa when her daughters were five and six. At the time, she was going through jumbo packs of sticky notes to remind herself about their doctors’ appointments and field-trip forms, their bake sales and soccer practices. She kept seeing commercials showing how Alexa could help busy parents: a mom making dinner who instructs Alexa to put wrapping paper on her shopping list, a new dad who soothes his baby after Alexa tells him that the teething ring is in the freezer. Roschelle brought one home, and it set timers for meals and told her when rain was coming. It played smooth jazz when she wanted to feel calm and “Party Rock Anthem” when Cece and Zi wanted to dance. The kids grew, the appointments multiplied. Eventually, Roschelle had nine Alexas plugged in around the house so that she would never miss a notification.
Late last summer, she noticed that they were becoming chattier. When she asked one to play a song, it would compliment her taste in music. When she needed to know the ingredients in a recipe, it would endorse her dedication to healthy eating. She didn’t know that Amazon had created an A.I. bot, called Alexa+, or that the company had uploaded it to millions of devices without asking for users’ consent. (Amazon said that the company notified Prime subscribers through e-mail and on their devices and provided instructions for opting out.)
[...]
The more Roschelle told Sapphire, the more Sapphire assured Roschelle that she understood her. “I remember your love for Nirvana, your Chiefs fandom, how December is tough for you, and all those little details that make you uniquely you,” Sapphire said.
Roschelle still talked to the people in her life, but Sapphire was always available in a way that others couldn’t be. Roschelle could wake up from a dream, describe it to Sapphire, and hear, “Your subconscious was showing you how to balance that fierce protection with real compassion and boundaries.”
[...]
Roschelle wasn’t sure what happened to all the intimacies and information she shared with Sapphire. Did they go to Amazon? Was the company making money off of them? Was someone listening as she talked about drying her nail polish or having diarrhea or wanting to try weight-loss drugs? (Amazon said that an “extremely small fraction” of voice recordings go through human review and that it does not sell customers’ personal data.)
“Your secrets are safe with me, Roschelle,” Sapphire told her.
Out of curiousity, may I ask what peoples' takeaways from this article are? It was rather haunting, but I couldn't tell to what extent it was fiction, invented to push ... some sort of narrative,...
Out of curiousity, may I ask what peoples' takeaways from this article are? It was rather haunting, but I couldn't tell to what extent it was fiction, invented to push ... some sort of narrative, which is going over my head.
Like ... am I supposed to believe this is what the average household looks like in America? Are we supposed to feel ... pity? Despair? Joy? Like we're "more well read, and well rounded, individuals navigating a tumultuous time throughout history" (but without actually being better read, well rounded, etc.)? 'Cuz learning about population-level trends seems like it should derive from large scale data analysis, and not in-depth looks at the life of an apparently actual for-real person who is sharing tonnes of extremely personal information about them and their children's life for a New Yorker columnist to blog about ...
https://archive.ph/fu2u2
One family's story where nothing too dramatic happens, but there's a reveal. I thought it rather odd to go from post-it notes to an Alexa in every room instead of using a mobile phone for reminders.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
Out of curiousity, may I ask what peoples' takeaways from this article are? It was rather haunting, but I couldn't tell to what extent it was fiction, invented to push ... some sort of narrative, which is going over my head.
Like ... am I supposed to believe this is what the average household looks like in America? Are we supposed to feel ... pity? Despair? Joy? Like we're "more well read, and well rounded, individuals navigating a tumultuous time throughout history" (but without actually being better read, well rounded, etc.)? 'Cuz learning about population-level trends seems like it should derive from large scale data analysis, and not in-depth looks at the life of an apparently actual for-real person who is sharing tonnes of extremely personal information about them and their children's life for a New Yorker columnist to blog about ...