Alexa is Cool But She Makes Me Nervous

Hello folks, let’s chat… My daughter gave me an Amazon Echo this Christmas. In case you’re not familiar, Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. You can ask her to do all kinds of things, like play your favorite song, give a weather report, or update a sports score. Don’t bother asking her to do the laundry though. I’ve already tried. Sadly, we’re still a good way off from Rosie and the Jetsons. And if you recognize that reference, it might take you a couple tries to get the hang of the voice commands. This will amuse your adult children. Just remind them that you taught them to use the toilet. I’ve found that to be a great equalizer.

The Echo’s name is Alexa. She’s picky about that. You’ll need to call her by the correct name before she responds. That said, she does have super-sonic hearing that allows her to hear you from across the room, even if she’s already playing a music selection. We thoroughly tested that feature on New Year’s Eve by bombarding her with song requests while simultaneously playing a rousing game of Mexican Train dominos with the great-grandparents. Alexa served up everything from “Shake” by MercyMe, to “A Big Iron on My Hip” by Marty Robbins. (I’ll give you three guesses as to which generation requested that last tune and the first two don’t count.)

I felt sure Alexa and I were going to become fast friends— until my daughter came out with a troubling news story. Prosecutors in a domestic murder case in Arkansas are trying to force Amazon to provide data from an Echo at the crime scene. They think she may have recorded information pertinent to the investigation. What’s even more troubling, the experts went on to say that soon all our smart home appliances could be called to testify against us.

I’m pretty sure I don’t like where this is headed and I would like the record to show that regardless of what my dishwasher says, I never, rarely ever, rerun the cycle to avoid putting away the dishes. Alexa, please play that’s “My Story and I’m Sticking To It.”

Hugs,
Shellie