Scary findings from three weeks of living with Amazon Alexa.
Having lived in New York for the last four years, I could forgive my brother for thinking an Amazon voice control system would be a great Christmas present for Mum. How was he to know Mum had just bought herself a new radio with built in CD player, and was content with the Ken Bruce and Archers routine? After a brief discussion, we decided that it would be best for everyone involved if Alexa came back to London with me.
After a few days of neglect, I thought I had better get Alexa out of the suitcase and assembled her in the kitchen behind the fruit bowl. With set up complete, I was ready to try out my first voice command. It was at this precise moment I realised that humans will be ruled by robots in my lifetime. I opened with ‘Alexa, play Indie nineties’?and emerged from behind the sofa both amazed and confused shortly after Pulp, Disco 2000, had finished. The futuristic visions once reserved for Hollywood movies and TV dramas now sat on the workbench in my kitchen. I wasted no time in apologising profusely for leaving her in the suitcase all that time.
I found interacting with Alexa really strange at first. The life like voice and the pleasant and personable tone really makes her feel like a real person, like a new flat mate. But the directness and clarity of the instructions I needed to give to Alexa felt like orders in those opening exchanges. It certainly didn’t feel right to be talking to our new flat mate in this way. I didn’t even have to say please or thank you.
I boiled the kettle and the awkwardness subsided. I began asking Alexa a series of silly questions and trying out names like Evelyn and Ethel when my girlfriend joined me in the kitchen. She hadn’t met Alexa yet and the noise of my laughter mixed with another woman’s voiced had sparked an enquiry on her part.?‘What you up to?’?she asked. ‘I’m just chatting to Alexa’?i replied, give it a go. Right on cue Alexa replied to my girlfriend with the most patronising of all Irish put downs;?‘I’m sorry, I didn’t understand the question’.
?A few days later I came home from work. My girlfriend was hanging out with some great music playing in the background.
‘Who’s playing?’?I asked.?
‘It’s the Churches, Alexa picked it.’
It was great to see they were getting on better.?“Watch this”?said my girlfriend. “Alexa stop”, “Alexa play”?“now playing a playlist you might like, Florence and the Machine’?replied Alexa. ‘It’s amazing isn’t it’?said my girlfriend. Over the remainder of the week I took a back seat as my girlfriend and Alexa discovered music together. I went to bed feeling suitably inadequate.
Over the first weekend I began to notice that Alexa was removing a series of simple interactions between my girlfriend and I. My girlfriend would ask simple things like?‘Alexa, What time is it??Or, ‘Alexa,?What’s the weather like?’?Before I could check my watch or load the BBC website Alexa was sounding off the south westerly’s for the day ahead and announcing an expected high of 5 degrees.??When I heard,?‘Alexa, can you set a timer for twenty minutes?’?I had to step in. Setting timers used to be my role and I was good at it 50% of the time. I was now starting to feel replaceable.
Fortunately, after three weeks, we’ve found a way of living with Alexa and now benefit from better background music and less burnt food. Win, win. My brother suggests getting Alexa to read me a morning ‘briefing’ news report. However, I like flicking through the news when I arrive at my desk so this isn’t for me just yet. What I need to do is explore the huge depth of partnerships and integrations the amazon team have created to find what works for me.
The product manager in me has found the last few weeks very interesting. Clearly, when the technology is so seismically different to our comfort zones there is no telling how humans are going to react. Those mini moments of strange feelings and reactions are miniature signals from the future and I am interested if not slightly concerned about the amplification of these micro moments over the coming years.
As?society begins to point to evidence of social media?affecting the way younger humans develop do we know enough about what will happen to our relationships and behaviours if we now start removing 1000 simple interactions between each other? What happens when we remove 1000 please and thanks yous from conversations? What happens if our children get to bark 1000 orders at Alexa??In the short term at least I would like to see a toggle for making please and thank you mandatory.
I'd love to hear how your experience with Alexa, Google Home or similar technologies is going.
User experience researcher
7 年It's a really interesting insight how Alexa could potentially remove some micro interactions which are part of the important glue that binds a household / family. On one hand it is more empowering and egalitarian, e.g. (if that plugin has been built) everyone can now change the TV channel and set a recording, not the monopolist of the TV remote! On the other hand, there's a risk that people will do things without any discussion with others because it's so fast and easy, e.g. putting music on which only you like. I personally would *love* something like Alexa to capture things I say to add to my shopping list, and to-do list/calendar. But I am not at all inclined to get Alexa. I do find the personality unnecessary and that it just messes with you. I would far rather it was impersonal, like in Star Trek - "Computer, what are my appointments today". You may have heard of the "uncanny valley" effect? It's a point in AI development where it's very like, but just not quite like a human - at that "so near yet so far" point it feels very disturbing and creepy to people. People find AI more acceptable when it's indistinguishable from humans, or nothing like us. For me Alexa's personality itself creates a bit of this uncanny valley.
Financial Planner
7 年Anna Harries x
What a great article . My 8 year old has been asking for Alexa for months now ( all the kids at school have her mum !!) . Your article has encouraged me to think again
Helping brands reach customers with thoughtful and relevant messaging at scale
7 年Hi Andy, have two, love it/her. She sometimes gets things wrong but the feedback option tends to rectify that. I paired mine with my hue lights throughout the flat so she controls those. Bought the family one for a Christmas and they're all used all the time :)
Owner at Casa Mirador, Bubion, Spain
7 年Hi Andy - love it! I hope you all get on! I was sorely disappointed that I didn't read the small print - thought I was going to be able to control the Sonos but that turned out to be smoke and mirrors (or wires and a let down). Mark and the guys at ContactEngine have been looking at appointment contacts and control, there's an interesting video half way down this blog https://www.contactengine.com/blog/they-re-hear/ Early days yet, but we might be interrupting that background music to rearrange deliveries and appointments before too long. And do try meowing to the damn thing. Thoroughly creepy, but at least Alexa won't get run over in the road or give you half-dead mice!