So it looks like everyone is listening to us! That is, except the people that we really want to listen to us 🙂
This line of news reminded me of our earlier paranoia when email was new and fresh. We were told convincingly that any email we send, via any free service, is being read by people in those organizations. For whatever reason, including placing ads that we never click on.
We have moved on from that fear, and made peace in using email so prevalently despite all the warning… and now this!
With email, we now trust it completely, regardless of who the service provider is. We email each other everything from our most intimate secrets to passwords!
With voice, we need to evolve because when there are only 2 people in the room talking, we assume there are only 2 people in the room… and speak as per that implicit understanding. If we constantly think of the iPhone, Android Phone or Alexa in the room too, we may need to write hand-written notes to each other if we care about our privacy.
Remember the famous ‘Keep talking’ scene from Guns of Navarone? 🙂
In the film, the team is going over the plan when one of them writes on a piece of paper ‘Keep talking’ and passes it on to all. The team keeps talking while Col. Andrea Stavros, played by Anthony Quinn, sneaks over to the door and catches the eavesdropper outside.
With our ‘smart’ voice assistants listening to us all the time, we have volunteered to bring the eavesdropper into our lives, for our own supposed ‘benefit’. It’s probably just a matter of time before we get used to this too, like we did in case of email.