Smart speaker bearing witness in murder trial

In 2017 an Amazon Alexa ‘testified‘ in a murder trial in Arkansas, and is now scheduled to do so in New Hampshire (a double murder!).

No word on Siri, Bixby, “OK Google” and their kin.

Now, obviously big tech would prefer to keep mum on what they are recording around your house, and a subpoena kinda makes that hard. We’ve already had some issues with smart TV listening in.

I wonder who would be interested in a ‘what goes on in my house when i’m not using the Internet’ report?’ Have we reached the state where home ‘robots’ use more bandwidth than people?

What’s next to get smart around the home that can be subpoened? I mean, toilets got Internet some time ago.  Definitely we need some sort of kitchen-counter that is a large touch display (that is using some super gorilla glass that can withstand the slap-chop).

I look forward to the day we have a smart central vacuum testify in court. Or run for government.

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One response to “Smart speaker bearing witness in murder trial”

  1. Tom McLean

    Personally, I hope these devices are just a fad that fades soon. There’s something ridiculous about having a device that’s permanently connected and full of censors to monitor you and your environment, the inner workings of which are somewhat or largely a mystery to you, trying to interpret what you’re doing or what you want and, due to the actual reality of where we are with AI (a term horribly misused), doing it really stupidly.

    Cultural hubris converges with creepy technobluffery to produce confusion and increasingly anxious questions about where it’s all headed. Not impressed over here.

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