Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Cookies and Airlocks—The Perils and Virtues of Voice Commands

A six-year-old girl in Texas was delighted when the family received an Echo Dot for a holiday gift. It features Alexa, the digital assistant that answers questions and handles calendars, etc. The girl asked Alexa questions about cookies and a dollhouse.

The next thing you know, Amazon delivered four pounds of cookies and a $170 dollhouse. Alexa had interpreted the conversation as an order.

All this goes to show the danger of voice commands. It also serves as a segue to a line from my latest science fiction manuscript, Alpha Shift.

 photo by Constantin Barbu 
  
The ship’s systems were mostly not operated by voice commands, since past experience had shown that an officer lecturing his crew on how to fire weapons could have disastrous results.


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