Is Google Home a stepping stone?
Why we should be cautious of Artificial Intelligence in our homes
I recall when my father bought us a ‘Google Home’ device 3 months ago. The whole family laughed as we tried it out, witnessing the automated voice crack jokes and play music. Then we all gasped as we realised our Google home had capabilities to record conversations. Should we be carefully evaluating whether we want this digital technology in our lives? I believe the answer to this question is simply, ‘yes, we should’. As our home technology starts to resemble Artificial Intelligence, it appears there are more to these devices than greets the eye.
What are they and why are they so popular?
Google’s January 2018 report published that more than one Google Home device had sold every second, since its launch in October of 2017. Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ equivalent is similarly omnipresent in the market; with 100 million sold as of January this year.
There are other devices on the market, but these are the two big players. The Google Home is compatible with 1,500 smart home appliances. It can control these appliances at your request, perform Google searches and make phone calls, among other things.
The Amazon Alexa has practically the same properties, and both are gaining popularity from the convenience and novelty a virtual home assistant brings. Certain research has even identified the benefits of these devices in providing ‘friendship’ to lonely people. The 2019 New Work Summit discussed our tendency to anthropomorphise objects, and Alexa’s capacity to learn its users habits and needs. It concluded that this has lead the way to a companion like relationship; that is, where it feels like there is ‘trust and dependency’ between user and device.
Is there really cause for concern?
We must consider if the affordance of these technologies provide ease of living, or a path to independent thinking technology that will define our lives in the future. For an accessible price of just under $200 Australian dollars, it seems that tech Giants like Google and Amazon have ulterior motives of preparing us for a future cohabiting with Artificial Intelligence.
In fact, Amazon reports the Alexa will soon be able to hold a 20 minute conversation, and Google now has a specialised ‘Google AI’ team. Their upcoming development for the Google Home is an artificial voice called ‘Google Duplex’; it is eerily humanlike, and will be able to independently make phone calls for its user. The voice even emulates idiosyncrasies of human conversations, using ‘um’ in it’s sentences. Have a listen to the Duplex voice in this dialogue, booking a hair appointment.
“I believe the full development of Artificial Intelligence, could spell the end of the human race”
I considered why the Duplex voice was so off putting to me. I remember as a child watching an episode of the Simpsons where Marge acquires an amazing virtual home assistant, who soon becomes jealous of Homer and tries to kill him. These are the kind of far fetched concepts that create fear of Artificial Intelligence, but Stephen Hawking’s comments on AI in a 2014 BBC News interview bring some legitimacy to this fear. His opinion was that AI could ‘spell the end of mankind’, as it will soon be programmed to develop and further its own abilities, while humans are left behind by the gradual process of evolution.
Sociologist and theorist Benjamin Bratton in his book On Software and Sovereignty consolidates Hawking’s warnings about AI’s learning complex. He states in contrast with the ‘friend’ theory, that we must stop operating as if Alexa or Google Home possess any desire to care and serve us. Instead we must be aware of a future where Artificial Intelligent devices see us as irrelevant, and therefore disposable.
Let’s not be too haphazard…
And while the future of Artificial Intelligence may be an inevitability, other academics like Max Tegmark will tell you that Google Home and Amazon Alexa pose no threat. They are a long way off independent thought after all.
So should we be cautious, yes. But unlike Homer says, I don’t think the presence of home devices means the end is near…
