New Echo, Old Problems
Reflecting on the Amazon’s Echo Look, its potentials and pitfalls.
The first thing that came to my mind as soon as I saw Echo Look was Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. For those who don’t know this is a 90’s classic which is often dismissed as ‘chic flick’ and is a surprisingly good movie `well written and made and has a very young Paul Rudd in it too. Alicia Silverstone’s character Cher wears very chic clothes, noticeable even to a fashion noob like me. Maybe because she has some help from technology; a futuristic digital closet with style inputs. It was soon to be future in the 90’s imagination of computing everywhere in everything. Check out the clip below:
22 years later, Amazon seems to have made Cher’s gadget true with Echo Look. An Alexa with eyes or rather an Echo combined with what looks like a cheap webcam from the 2000’s. (those LED’s around the camera!) I have been a long time Echo user and I think it is a great device to have all around the home. It is pretty efficient for a lot of little things and controlling the smart home. I even miss it when I travel. I believe it is great to have a new addition to the Echo family, one with sight. I think some pretty useful skills made for Skype and Hangouts integration are waiting to be created if Amazon release a video API for Alexa. And of course, ‘grams and snaps could easily follow.
Amazon’s focus with this device, as it sits in the bedroom, seems to be a more intimate, literally putting personal in the personal assistant named Alexa. Echo Look takes pictures, keeps a daily log of your attire and even gives you style advice like Cher’s computer. The fact that this video was released on Youtube by AmazonFashion keeps the focus front and center on clothes and Amazon’s effort to sell you some more. And, of course, that means helping you out in all the above ways and gathering data on what you wear, telling you what would suit you better and giving you insight while collecting treasure troves of information themselves. Typical tech company behavior but what’s amazing is, with this device, Amazon gets a best friend’s insight into your wardrobe and by aggregating that over millions of individuals it understands the world of fashion better than the pundits, eventually.
The machine learning magic running in the background promises to make it a better buy for the future. But all the privacy scares that follow big data and targeting are bound to be here too as Zeynep Tufekci points out in this tweet chain. I’d urge you to click through and read it all.
In case you didn’t click through, here are some of the issues she highlights. The information machine learning algorithms can surmise with the data available is staggering, and way more than what an average consumer can imagine or signs up for. Full length pictures can infer things we don’t disclose like our sexual orientations, health information, personality types and even predict oncoming medical conditions. The lack of a clear disclosure to the users of what all can be done, muddled information on what will be done with their private data, and with constant looming threats of privacy hacks, Zeynep believes this is a gateway to uber surveillance and authoritarian control. She also mentions of how obvious existing biases in algorithms can reinforce certain behaviors, fashion or otherwise.
I agree with the above mentioned threats and call for a more clear representation of possibilities these devices create now, and in future. The imagination created by the companies that makes these devices and the tech journalists that cover them are almost always positive and there aren’t enough participants in the conversation who take a darker view. The smart homes from science fiction are quickly becoming a greater reality and provide us with a lot of services easing our lives while also simultaneously snatching our own agency in subtle ways. I also worry that these services that are “cool” and make our lives “comfortable” will be those which companies deem right for us (and profitable for them) with little control over our own data the company collects. Even if I wanted help from Echo to monitor my mental state every day or create my own personal dailybooth, while the information resides somewhere in Amazon servers, I could never access it (atleast not in ways I want it or in entirety). With the current state of affairs it is tough ask to demand my information to put for my own use while they use it themselves.
Finally, I want to talk a bit about the product positioning and messaging itself. Did you found anything strange about the ad? I did. It was almost always women. Where are the men? There were 3 shots of men in the video (all near the wardrobe and not in front of the Look) and one photo of a man (this time in front of the Look) on the product webpage. Fashion is not only for women. Men too care about how they look. In fact, last year, when I wanted to up my style game, I installed a HTC Re on my mirror and took a photo each day before I went out. Very Echo Look-esque that way but without the digital assistant help.
I can’t say exactly why but this is as troubling to me as the lack of representation or depictions of gendered stereotypes when it comes to women in representation of future spaces. Like how some device makers think designing for women means making it in pink, jumping to women when you think of fashion seems similarly reductive. Well atleast Amazon wants to know that Look will work for you regardless of what color your skin is. They seem to have subtly emphasized by including multi-racial cast and hinting that this device won’t have the issues that have been plaguing image recognition.
Having said all this, I am still in the market for an Echo Look. I see the device and its immense potential with an ever growing range of skills Alexa is gathering. A fantastic future where we live and work with computers seamlessly is coming and devices like these are paving the way there. Yet, we as technologists and early adopters need to raise flags, and throw flares to point out and fix potential threats.
What do you think? Do you already own an Echo or planning to get one? Will you get an Echo Look?
