Hey! That’s not a smoke detector. But, Kim Jong-un’s goons are listening at the other end.
While the premise of electronic home sentient technology armed with privacy invading features is the norm rather than a nasty surprise, the average insatiable digital consumer endures a brief paroxysm of unbridled hysteria, during each instance where a gadget breaks the sacred code of artificial intelligence ethics. For the majority of Alexa and Siri loving smartphone controlled online micromanaging of the sociobiological hierarchy on the homefront, the novelty of engaging in a supposed organic conversation with an AI in selecting music that fits the mood rightfully alleviates the Big Brother tendencies of aggressive marketing agency data collection efforts, which makes the census by comparison seem like a rum-infused private island vacation of intrigue and general peacefulness.
Google has managed to ruffle the feathers of viral headlines in the legitimate realm of news once again for simply engaging in passive and pensive policy by delightfully tap dancing around the molten flames of transparency in the complete failure to divulge to customers of the evil pretext of remote home security technologies. No, the culprit is not the Al Gore endorsed sanctimonious and blood thirsty self-driving hybrid vehicle design in which engineers inexplicably installed a kill, and ultra kill setting in violently encountering pedestrians, especially those who are scanned and deemed to be privileged by a series of radioactive emanating sensors. This is a blatant act of devious and subversive warfare on personal privacy with an egregious ulterior motive set in motion by the Google corporate leadership in enacting control and forwarding an agenda. Ironically, the Chinese military grade micro-surveillance most likely reverse engineered from NSA hardware, is furtively housed in the popular Google Nest electronic security system reports CNN, a critical truth deliberately kept from users. And now the corporation is frenetically backtracking and in full damage control mode, rivaling a disastrous Tonya Harding singles figure skating routine featuring Nancy Kerrigan as a judge.
Company officials claim that the hidden microphone built into the infrastructure of the Nest Guard and capable of discerning between sarcasm and intent, is not currently listening to the active conversations in American homes, and that Google planned on alerting consumers, once the voice recognition technology was successfully integrated. While happy endings are reserved for fairy tales and Bitocoin will make every investor wealthy, the jury is still out and at a dive bar enjoying a martini lunch, as the track record of the tech industry in ungraciously side-stepping basic business ethics, and violating privacy laws all in the absence of satisfactory accountability, continues to be an alarming and destructive trend. This chaotic instance of future shock is only exacerbated by the willingness and enthusiasm of users to purchase the entire vertical marketplace of voice activated smart home systems, as a faction of society is either eternally naive, or have surrendered to the possibility that the concept of privacy has been forced into extinction by technoevolution. If the latter option is the case, the only recourse is to live out the remaining years with a huge chip on the shoulder and to avoid sketchy electronic products until of course the industry forces the hand.
Already, the smartphone has successfully infiltrated multiple societal groups, in creating a zombie type existence and alternate reality permanent distraction from real life, while the social networks steal the time and energy of an individual, as online interactions are replacing in person dialogue and debate. With the full-scale development of AI technologies being woven into the home and vehicles with the addictive hook of a friendly human voice and preying on the imagination of the user that in fact the contrived persona is actually another member of the family, there is literally no turning back. Family members can now monitor each other on a whim using the incendiary combination of the I-phone and the Nest system, while the entire dark web criminal syndicate can hack the party of suburban espionage at a moment’s notice. It’s like a creepy rendition of pay-per-view voyeurism, and the psychological ramifications on a world where someone is guaranteed to be watching, are sure to be fascinatingly tragic.
In the middle of the twentieth century, television overtook radio as a permanent fixture in the living room in providing a common ground for a gathering, and evolved to replacing silence as the perpetual background noise of a household and even providing companionship. The underlying principle and modus operandi behind the vacuum tubes, was an efficient and innovative marketing tool in forwarding advertising, while providing news, entertainment and sports.
The proliferation of listening response devices forwards the marketing prowess of the television dinosaur by magnitudes of tens of thousands, as organic conversation, interaction, and sounds from the bedroom can be stored and analyzed, in customizing the user experience to fulfill all needs and desires, without ever having to experience life. What Silicone Valley does not want to discuss or acknowledge, is the nefarious and corruptible side to a constant open audio and video channel breaching the basic framework of privacy, a reprehensible and negligent response to the opening of Pandora’s Box. But would do out of touch and maladjusted billionaires care in the wayward quest for relentless globalization?
Maybe, this editorial can get me 86’d from the swipe right, swipe left interludes of the modern horrors of online dating apps. “Siri. Back off!”
Read the CNN story here.