My wife bought me one of those Echo Dot gadget thingies for my birthday. You know, one of those hands-free things you can instruct to perform various things for you, such as playing particular songs, tell you the time, etc.
Yes-that’s as far as I’ve got at the moment. Technology is not my forte.
All of a sudden, there’s another presence in the house. When my daughter is telling me how to address it, she turns her back on it, whispering, as though it is listening in to her. Does it watch us as we pass?
My son, James, bellows at it like a sergeant major: “ALEXA, WHAT’S THE WEATHER LIKE IN MANCHESTER?”
Of course, we live in Manchester. But perhaps Alexa knows better.
I feel all self-conscious when I hold a conversation with it, my manners kicking in. When it does what I’ve asked it to I can’t help but say thank you.
If you was to look on my daughter’s phone you’d see a video that she made, giggling and whispering upstairs on the landing. “I’m about to annoy my Dad.” She then shouts down the stairs: “Alexa, sing a song,” and you’d hear me shouting ” Piss off Millie!” in exasperation as Alexa starts singing a nursery rhyme during a crucial moment in the tv programme I’m watching.
This morning, while it was just the two of us, I thought I should try and make an acquaintance of him. Or her. It. Perhaps Alexa is gender fluid.
Even though we’d already had a formal introduction, we needed to familiarise ourselves with each other. My attempts fell on deaf ears. Or speakers.
Several times I was pointedly ignored, greeted by silence every time I requested The Beatles’ White Album.
Then James emerged, clutching his schoolbag, to witness my one-way conversation. “Dad-it’s not called Siri, it’s called Alexa.”
Siri is the name of another hands-free gadget thingie my friend has in his car. I’d been calling mine by the wrong name. It looked like it was quietly fuming. Siri; Alexa. Maybe they were cousins.
“Alexa,” the disc lit up in response, “do you know Siri?”
“Only by reputation.”
The reply was instant. I was sure I could detect a certain tone, a nuanced knowing.
“Only by reputation.” I think if Alexa came with eyebrows one of them would have been raised.
I’ve read enough sci-fi to know that we are on that road now. This is just the start. Next there will be Replicants. And Cyborgs. And toasters that know better than you just how you like your toast. Burning it black every time you get its name wrong. A technological wonder, but a very jealous mistress.
Scary but it’ll happen …Alexa used to be movie star Weebo only some 21 years ago …The era of iRobot is near ..
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I hear you.
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I got one for my birthday too! Have you asked Alexa if father Christmas is real, or indeed if you are beautiful? 😉 . All I have done so far is ask her the weather , play music and the above….
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I will do-my kids have discovered a new question, about flatulence 🙈
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😉
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They now have a version that, if you whisper to HER, she whispers back. Scary!
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That sounds a bit creepy!
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I have a Google Home which was a freebie with my wife’s new phone. I’m trying to get that to speak to Alexa!!!!!
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I feel an ‘incident’ coming on!
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Friends have Alexa in their house. I see them talk to a box, they think they talk to a person in that box. At least it looks that way when they give Alexa orders or ask questions. Have you asked Alexa what the meaning of life is. She has a brilliant answer.
I can recommend reading Max Tegmarks book Life 3.0. He writes about A.I development in future scenarios. Very interesting.
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I asked about the meaning of life 😂 Thanks will check out that book.
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It’s a great book 🙂
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Love this narrative, Andy.
Do you have a Twitter profile? I want to share this and I’d like to tag you as well.
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Hi, no I’m yet to join Twitter (I’m pretty much on everything else!). But you can share it, thank you.
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As a certain famous someone with British blood once remarked, “What’s in a name?”
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Shamefully I had to google 🙈
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Interesting that you should post this, Andy. I had dinner at the home of some friends. One gleefully pointed out Alexa, which they’d positioned on the bookshelf. We played “Guess the Song”–songs of the 60s. I lost.
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I think I’d have done better with the 60’s than today’s music.
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A wonderfully well-written post, Andy… And it illustrates all the reasons why I am never getting one of these gadgets! I like controlling my own life and my dog is a great listener without talking back!
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Your dog wouldn’t be called Alexa, would it?
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hahaha!! Jess. I am safe! 🙂
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😂
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Maybe we did have a Space Odyssey way back in 2001 and didn’t realise until Alexa and Siri turned up and started plotting world domination from the bookshelf.
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Not for the first time I’ve said it-we are doomed! 😀
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