Though it seems like we’re constantly reading headlines about the growing popularity of digital home systems like the Amazon Echo or Google Home, there is still a large group of home owners that are wary of a connected home and its possible vulnerabilities, like the ability for their home to be hacked. Not to mention HAL syndrome (the rogue computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey).
WIRED contributors Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi think that there could be another reason to fear of voice assistants–manipulation.
Today, homeowners can use their voice assistants just like the internet by asking how to remove a stain from a shirt, what the weather is, or to look up a recipe for dinner. But what if this led to our devices not just providing us with information, but anticipating what our needs are and using it to advertisers’ advantage. Here’s why the two think it’s concerning:
The more we rely on our butler, the more data it collects on us, the more opportunities for the algorithms to learn, and the better the butler can predict our needs and identify relevant services. The more we use the butler, the more power it will have. Amazon’s Echo and Alphabet’s Home cost less than $200 today, and that price will likely drop. So who will pay our butler’s salary, especially as it offers additional services? Advertisers, most likely. Our butler may recommend services and products that further the super-platform’s financial interests, rather than our own interests. By serving its true masters—the platforms—it may distort our view of the market and lead us to services and products that its masters wish to promote.
But the potential harm transcends the search bias issue, which Google is currently defending in Europe. The increase in the super-platform’s economic power can translate into political power. As we increasingly rely on one or two head butlers, the super-platform will learn about our political beliefs and have the power to affect our views and the public debate.
