Not get off my lawn, More Get Out of My House

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, after the Earth is destroyed, Arthur spends a lot of time trying to get a decent cup of tea. One of the machines he tries is the Nutri-Matic Drink Dispenser, which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. After an argument with the Drink Dispenser he has an argument with the air system and the vibrating floor. He tries to explain why he wants a cup of tea to the machines that are just not getting it. They ask him, “Then why did you build all of us?”

We don’t have a digital assistant in our house. We cannot talk to our security system. Our fridge does not make us a shopping list or what the weather is outside or tell us our weight to seven decimal places. Our Amazon firestick does not have an audio component. I can’t tell my car to unlock or turn itself on.

I don’t need my house to be listening to me. Gathering data from my conversations with my husband. I know my iPhone and iPad is doing just fine in that department with the various apps that are aware of where I am when.

I know that using my Stop and Shop card to get a price gun so I can shop faster gives Stop and Shop permission to know what I bought. My reward is money off of gas and some really great coupons that are geared to what I buy. The same for my CVS rewards card along with any other reward card I have in my wallet or attached to my phone number.

I am willing to be a data point but I am not willing to give Carte blanch to be listened to 24/7. My concerns are not from the legal uses that one agrees to before one can use their new digital assistant, but from the illegal uses between the data breaches that have happened to just about every company to individual hacks to listen in on my life. I think I should write a murder mystery that happens because of someone listening in with the digital assistant. I expect to see this one of the many procedural shows any day now. Think about the lock door scenario when you have digital locks. Or a private investigator using the digital assistant to give proof of infidelity or grounds for divorce.

Your digital ‘fingerprint’ follows you through out your life. We have discovered that from all the things that people have put out on the Internet that have come back to haunt them.

I don’t need more data about me out there then there already is.

Also we are just starting to hear about the weird things that happen when you have something listening to you 24/7. Amazon made a joke out of it with the dog ordering food and Harrison Ford trying to cancel the order. But think about that for a moment. You say casually that you want to buy something but you were really just kidding only to find that your digital assistant was listening and ordered it for you. Then there was the evil laugh situation, which was just scary.

I rarely use Siri on my iPhone or iPad. Caroline and Peter are very comfortable with it. I did teach Caroline that she could get her phone to tell her what song was playing which she found fascinating.

I am fine right now with my digital footprint. I am fine with people digging into my past online because anything I have said here I would say in public. I am less fine in the thought of being listened to 24/7. I really don’t want to have to monitor my mouth/behavior that much.

I am grateful for my digital devices that aren’t listening to me.