Hello Friends,
In 1963, Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle was published. It’s a post-apocalyptic story written as a satirical look at the Cold War arms race (if humor could come out of that topic—back then, we were simultaneously less and more serious than we are now—IYKYK).
The novel centers on the invention of a substance called ice-nine that allows water to solidify at a high temperature—114 degrees Fahrenheit. It was intended to help troops fight on wet, muddy surfaces more easily.
Unfortunately, its effects spread, and any water that touched ice-nine immediately became more ice-nine and instantly froze.
At the outset of the novel, all the world’s water, including the water in the entire world’s population’s human bodies (except for the book’s narrator), has been frozen. The inventor of ice-nine absentmindedly touched his lips with the substance on his fingertips. That act froze him, and by contact, started a chain reaction that solidified the world.
It’s one of those books that I read as a young man and put away in the back of my mind—I have more favorite Vonnegut novels—until such time as it seems prescient.
Until such time as I come across an article this week about a group of scientists who create room-temperature ice.
Their stuff is called XXI.
And technically, it’s a phase of water created with extreme pressure, not a substance. But still… haunting?
Coincidentally, this week I got an email from Amazon (pre-network meltdown—more on this next week) informing me that as an Echo user, I was entitled to upgrade to their Alexa+ service, called “Follow Up Mode”.
The Amazon Echo (powered by Alexa) was originally built to make it easy for consumers to buy stuff, as in, “Alexa, buy the new Taylor Swift album.”
But that potential did not pan out for Amazon. Apparently, consumers don’t want a little genie in the corner of their room delivering their every whim when it actually charges their credit card.
With Jeff Bezos’ company falling behind in the newest cold war arms race (artificial intelligence), Amazon decided to turn its costly failed shopping venture into an AI companion. Besides, AI can anticipate your dreams and charge your card even before you actually ask… (but we won’t talk about this here).
In order to engage with Alexa (the pre-plus way), one has to first speak the wake-up word: Alexa. For example: Alexa, what is today’s weather? Alexa, play my Amazon Prime music. Alexa, who invented the typewriter?
To which, the Echo device will perform a web search, then speak the answer back to you: “The inventor of the typewriter was Christopher Lantham Sholes.”
With Alexa+, you no longer have to speak the wake word with every inquiry. Now, you can just issue it once, and an Alexa-enabled device will listen continuously to everything going on in the room, seeking to have a conversation with you, until it decides to stop listening.
The potential downside of this is that now, once activated, Alexa (and Amazon, and Jeff Besos, and whoever else has access to your conversation history) gets to decide when to stop listening on its own.
With regard to this, Amazon says:
We have a team of world-class scientists and engineers dedicated to continually improving our detection technology.
https://www.amazon.com/b/?node=23660877011
It reminds me of this Family Guy episode: top men are working on it. Top men.
The other scary thing is that, like with Vonnegut’s ice-nine, one only has to activate a single Alexa device before it will take it upon itself to activate all other devices that are attached to that account, essentially unleashing a secret AI agent spy into your life.
Because I use Alexa to keep my grocery list, I have it installed on my phone. That will get the plus treatment, too.
So, anywhere in the world I go, if anyone mumbles the wake-up word (or Alexa misinterprets a stray sound as the wake-up word which happens at least once a day), the spy is in my pocket or your pocket if you also have a grocery list on Alexa, potentially picking up the surrounding conversations, unabated.
Last, to show the creepy power of this…I often read my writing out loud during editing. Consequently, speaking this article to myself in the room with my Echo device has caused me both to buy the new Taylor Swift album and to activate Alexa+.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Happy reading, happy writing, happy days,
David