The Subtle Ways Your Digital Assistant Might Manipulate You
TODAY WE GOOGLE for information, but in the future, we might not need to. Instead we may rely on our butler, namely the intelligent, voice-activated digital assistant on our smart phones, smart watches, or devices like Amazon’s Echo and Alphabet’s Home. Rather than searching the web, we’ll be able to ask our digital assistant how to remove the stain from our shirt. It’ll perform other perfunctory tasks, like adding groceries to our shopping list, checking the weather, sending a text, or ordering an Uber.
Besides providing us with information, digital assistants can also anticipate and fulfill our needs and requests, based on what they know about us. Instead of worrying over life’s small details, we shall entrust our digital assistant to dim the lights and lower the thermostat when we leave the house. As our butler learns our preferences, we can rely on it for dinner or entertainment suggestions. As our butler surfs the web to seamlessly provide more of what interests us and less of what doesn’t, we will grow to like and trust it.
wired.com
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