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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/15/alexa-whos-in-charge-of-my-life-rhik-samadder
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| Dear Alexa, who‘s in charge of my life, me or you? | Dear Alexa, who‘s in charge of my life, me or you? |
| (25 days later) | |
| Got an Amazon Echo for Christmas, just like every other basic-issue human. I’m under no illusion it’s anything other than the larval cell of a cybernetic panopticon that will eliminate our species. But I love it, because it’s allowed me to turn my home into a centrally heated jukebox, with snacks in. “Alexa, play Whiter Shade of Pale,” I bellow the instant I get in the door, before I turn cartwheels across the floor. And it happens, like magic. Majestic, organ-led magic, the vibrations of which make the neighbours experience a creeping sadness they didn’t know they had. | Got an Amazon Echo for Christmas, just like every other basic-issue human. I’m under no illusion it’s anything other than the larval cell of a cybernetic panopticon that will eliminate our species. But I love it, because it’s allowed me to turn my home into a centrally heated jukebox, with snacks in. “Alexa, play Whiter Shade of Pale,” I bellow the instant I get in the door, before I turn cartwheels across the floor. And it happens, like magic. Majestic, organ-led magic, the vibrations of which make the neighbours experience a creeping sadness they didn’t know they had. |
| There’s clearly Stasi-like potential to a networked machine that is always listening to you, yet it’s also clear we’ll put up with any sinister technology – if it’s cool enough. It also has to work, though, and Alexa users have reported a few problems. Such as her randomly crying out in the night, like a ghostly child. Or autonomously flirting with the voice of Google’s electronic domestic, like a confusing, modern version of Upstairs Downstairs. Or adding “cancer” to one woman’s shopping reminders, instead of Pampers. Of the ways to receive bad news, that has to be near the top of the list. | There’s clearly Stasi-like potential to a networked machine that is always listening to you, yet it’s also clear we’ll put up with any sinister technology – if it’s cool enough. It also has to work, though, and Alexa users have reported a few problems. Such as her randomly crying out in the night, like a ghostly child. Or autonomously flirting with the voice of Google’s electronic domestic, like a confusing, modern version of Upstairs Downstairs. Or adding “cancer” to one woman’s shopping reminders, instead of Pampers. Of the ways to receive bad news, that has to be near the top of the list. |
| My Alexa and I have had our share of run-ins, like any two people who share a cell. I know smart assistants are still learning. That’s clear from her voice-recognition abilities, which are both incredibly impressive, yet also comically inept. “Play Woke Up New by the Mountain Goats,” I yell, before she starts blasting out Woke Up in a New Bugatti by Ace Hood, featuring Rick Ross. I spend 20 minutes convincing her “marmoreal” and “memorial” are different words (don’t ask how she did with “formication”). “Alexa, what year was Alphabet Street by Prince released?” I ask. “Here is Elmo’s Rap Alphabet,” she replies, inexplicably pleased with herself. | My Alexa and I have had our share of run-ins, like any two people who share a cell. I know smart assistants are still learning. That’s clear from her voice-recognition abilities, which are both incredibly impressive, yet also comically inept. “Play Woke Up New by the Mountain Goats,” I yell, before she starts blasting out Woke Up in a New Bugatti by Ace Hood, featuring Rick Ross. I spend 20 minutes convincing her “marmoreal” and “memorial” are different words (don’t ask how she did with “formication”). “Alexa, what year was Alphabet Street by Prince released?” I ask. “Here is Elmo’s Rap Alphabet,” she replies, inexplicably pleased with herself. |
| Training machines to communicate meaningfully with us is a long way off. They first have to develop what philosophers call a theory of mind, involving contextual interpretation, sensitivity to emotional and social cues and self-consciousness. None of the smart assistants on the market would pass the Turing test, and convince an observer they were having an intelligent conversation. Although, depending on the time of day, I’m not sure I would either. Right, guys, I need that coffee! Don’t talk to me in the morning! Or the afternoon! | Training machines to communicate meaningfully with us is a long way off. They first have to develop what philosophers call a theory of mind, involving contextual interpretation, sensitivity to emotional and social cues and self-consciousness. None of the smart assistants on the market would pass the Turing test, and convince an observer they were having an intelligent conversation. Although, depending on the time of day, I’m not sure I would either. Right, guys, I need that coffee! Don’t talk to me in the morning! Or the afternoon! |
| I can report a horrific twist. Over the past few weeks I’ve started communicating differently. At a recent gathering, where a few people were talking at once, I slightly raised my voice, and immediately a familiar cadence entered it. “KATE,” I said to my friend Kate. “BRING ME SOME MALTESERS. MALTESERS.” I’d got used to barking blunt requests, as if perpetually on speakerphone with an automated cinema-booking system, or ordering a beer in France. It wasn’t the best way to talk to her, Kate replied, in her own words, using a bit of volume herself. | I can report a horrific twist. Over the past few weeks I’ve started communicating differently. At a recent gathering, where a few people were talking at once, I slightly raised my voice, and immediately a familiar cadence entered it. “KATE,” I said to my friend Kate. “BRING ME SOME MALTESERS. MALTESERS.” I’d got used to barking blunt requests, as if perpetually on speakerphone with an automated cinema-booking system, or ordering a beer in France. It wasn’t the best way to talk to her, Kate replied, in her own words, using a bit of volume herself. |
| Still, things will get better. An Amazon executive recently noted, in glowing terms, that since far-field microphones had been introduced to Fire TV, users were starting to speak in entire sentences, and asking her different questions. “They are starting to express a lot more intent.” He’s not talking about the machine, he’s talking about you. That’s where the current wave of AI is leading us. We’re not training Alexa. She is training us. | Still, things will get better. An Amazon executive recently noted, in glowing terms, that since far-field microphones had been introduced to Fire TV, users were starting to speak in entire sentences, and asking her different questions. “They are starting to express a lot more intent.” He’s not talking about the machine, he’s talking about you. That’s where the current wave of AI is leading us. We’re not training Alexa. She is training us. |
| My Kodak moment? I no longer understand the news | My Kodak moment? I no longer understand the news |
| Saw some interesting news recently – OK, I’m lying. I saw some news. It was this: “Kodak company shares soaring after jumping on crypto currency craze.” First, that’s not news. At best, it’s a mediocre tongue-twister. It’s also a sequence of words that couldn’t be more mysterious to me if they’d been scrawled in Aramaic and stuffed in a buried chest. | Saw some interesting news recently – OK, I’m lying. I saw some news. It was this: “Kodak company shares soaring after jumping on crypto currency craze.” First, that’s not news. At best, it’s a mediocre tongue-twister. It’s also a sequence of words that couldn’t be more mysterious to me if they’d been scrawled in Aramaic and stuffed in a buried chest. |
| I assume it means Kodak have decided to make their own money; understandable, as they’ve been losing it for years. But I didn’t know companies could just reinvent themselves like Madonna. It’s a disorienting world, where Microsoft might suddenly focus on selling secondhand cellos, or Bonne Maman start manufacturing arms. | I assume it means Kodak have decided to make their own money; understandable, as they’ve been losing it for years. But I didn’t know companies could just reinvent themselves like Madonna. It’s a disorienting world, where Microsoft might suddenly focus on selling secondhand cellos, or Bonne Maman start manufacturing arms. |
| What about the cryptocurrencies bit? That’s easier: cryptocurrencies are decentralised digital assets, built from blocks, which are released acyclically, from block-lattice nodes. These can be mined by investors, who digitally shrink themselves and enter the internet, to harvest them in special caps, while avoiding anyone in a suit played by the actor Hugo Weaving. | What about the cryptocurrencies bit? That’s easier: cryptocurrencies are decentralised digital assets, built from blocks, which are released acyclically, from block-lattice nodes. These can be mined by investors, who digitally shrink themselves and enter the internet, to harvest them in special caps, while avoiding anyone in a suit played by the actor Hugo Weaving. |
| The Kodak story isn’t just an absolute porcupine to get your head around, it’s probably also important, being news of the tectonic, economy-shifting kind that explains why in 15 months we’ll be fighting foxes for chicken wings and drinking from puddles. But it’s also boring. Civilisation will be dust before I understand cryptocurrency. It turns out what I actually like are simple, arguably banal ideas. Like Kodak, a company that makes camera film. Or used to. | The Kodak story isn’t just an absolute porcupine to get your head around, it’s probably also important, being news of the tectonic, economy-shifting kind that explains why in 15 months we’ll be fighting foxes for chicken wings and drinking from puddles. But it’s also boring. Civilisation will be dust before I understand cryptocurrency. It turns out what I actually like are simple, arguably banal ideas. Like Kodak, a company that makes camera film. Or used to. |
| I should say that I am horrified by this attitude. For years, I’ve been on the lookout for a tell-tale sign I’ve suddenly grown old: a decisive physical falter, clusters of Werther’s Originals sprouting in my pockets. But the more I think about it, the more I realise this is it: I’ve reached a point where not only do I not understand the news, I don’t even want to. Is this what they call a Kodak moment? I know that’s not what it used to mean, but maybe it’s time the phrase was reinvented. | I should say that I am horrified by this attitude. For years, I’ve been on the lookout for a tell-tale sign I’ve suddenly grown old: a decisive physical falter, clusters of Werther’s Originals sprouting in my pockets. But the more I think about it, the more I realise this is it: I’ve reached a point where not only do I not understand the news, I don’t even want to. Is this what they call a Kodak moment? I know that’s not what it used to mean, but maybe it’s time the phrase was reinvented. |
| Warning from Ground Control: don’t compare your life to David Bowie’s | Warning from Ground Control: don’t compare your life to David Bowie’s |
| Speaking of reinvention: I found the most depressing website in the world recently, and it’s not what you think. At supbowie.com you can type in your age, and it tells you what David Bowie was doing at the equivalent point in his life. Unless you released Space Oddity at 22, invented a new language at 30, or turned down a knighthood at 56, can you say you’ve lived? Has Lou Reed punched you in the face after dinner in Hammersmith? Have you played a character called Lord Royal Highness in SpongeBob SquarePants? What have you done, exactly? | Speaking of reinvention: I found the most depressing website in the world recently, and it’s not what you think. At supbowie.com you can type in your age, and it tells you what David Bowie was doing at the equivalent point in his life. Unless you released Space Oddity at 22, invented a new language at 30, or turned down a knighthood at 56, can you say you’ve lived? Has Lou Reed punched you in the face after dinner in Hammersmith? Have you played a character called Lord Royal Highness in SpongeBob SquarePants? What have you done, exactly? |