Mistake With a Personal Assistant

She sits patiently in millions of homes, an unremarkable cylinder commonly referred to as Alexa. But Amazon’s new ‘virtual assistant’ has been touted as nothing short of technological revolution.

In response to spoken commands, she answers questions which previously required an internet search, can perform mundane domestic tasks such as turning on lights, and makes online purchases – through Amazon, obviously.

Can it all be as innocent as it seems, particularly in an age rife with internet snooping? Or is Alexa a spy? Some users have even reported ‘bone-chilling’ cackles emanating from their speakers at random moments.

What, then, could possibly go wrong when Peter Hitchens welcomed Alexa into his Oxfordshire home?

How would Alexa fare with a grilling on matters ranging from Beethoven to Bob Dylan, and from the Mid-East crisis to Einstein’s theory of relativity?

I am enslaved by machines. But, like most slaves, I know deep down that I chose my fate. I calculated long ago that I preferred a life with mobile phones and computers to one without them. The price is high. It includes the loss of privacy, the unceasing availability to outsiders, the time wasted on the internet, the books unread, the conversations which never happened, the views from train windows that I completely missed as I checked my Twitter feed. I am sorry, but I am not that sorry.

But because my mind hardened before the age of the internet, I can resist much of it. Facebook is a mystery to me. I cannot see the point of it, or Snapchat or Instagram. My use of Twitter is brutally selfish, and if there were a Twitter Police, they would long ago have detained me for questioning.

So I am not the ideal subject for the new electronic fad, the thing most people call Alexa. This is a device about the size and shape of an extra-large family size can of baked beans, adorned with pretty flashing lights, now being widely promoted. The idea seems to be that you talk to it, it replies to you in a soothing voice and it then helps you buy things.

But I don’t need this. I like to buy my food at markets, and my books (if possible) from bookshops. I mistrust electronic banking and won’t use contactless cards. My experience of voice-activated switchboards is that they misunderstand all but the most simple words.

So with great reluctance I brought Alexa into my home, plugged it in and set it up. One of the first things I did was rename it. I didn’t like the phoney familiarity of the Christian name. I wanted to call it Miss Amazon, since it has a female voice. But Amazon was as near as I could get. And I tried to get it to call me Mr Hitchens, but have so far failed.

But I began as I meant to go on. I was going to find out about Amazon, rather than the other way round. I asked it ‘Do you tell lies?’ and it answered: ‘I don’t lie, I’ll always tell you what I know.’ Did it keep a record of what I said? It responded (as it does to 99 per cent of awkward questions): ‘I don’t know that one.’ Is it British? ‘I live in the cloud, you could call me a Cloudian.’ It was very keen on Jeff Bezos, boss of the Amazon company. It said he was ‘kind’ and that it ‘would give him five stars’. But it did not endorse the Washington Post, the newspaper Jeff Bezos owns. It had no opinions on Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, or on Bill Gates, another internet mogul.

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