Assimilation
With the rapidly increasing world of technology, there is very little that is not at our finger tips, with home heating systems that you can control from your phone, phone calls through the car stereo, the world is very close to what science fiction writers had in store for us many years ago. Stereotypes found in old movies of home robots in aprons doing your chores or speaking to you and fully understanding a conversation can be seen in a vast number of homes in the United Kingdom, but in smaller packages. Amazon’s Alexa and Google Dot have now found their way into the everyday family home, and speaking to a robot in your front room has become a normal occurrence. But is it making us lazy, and more importantly, is it safe? The way that these gadgets work is by listening to you throughout the day looking out for the words “Hey Alexa” or “Hey Google”, meaning that by buying these additions to your home you are agreeing to a robot analysing everything you say, which also means your conversations are stored on a server. Is this a safety concern? Reports have been made in the past of families having a conversation amongst themselves, about a product or a brand and then immediately having an advertisement for that particular product, show up on their social media, which makes you question how the information Alexa and Google know about you, is used by a third party. Perhaps we are closer to another old Science Fiction stereotype, the one where we make robots too smart for our own good.
Maya Julia Art 