Duncan Bell Is Speechless

Voice-controlling tech? I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding you right now…

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Alexa! Hey Siri! Okay Google. Bixby, I summon thee. A few years ago, if you said those things out loud to inanimate objects, people would have thought you were mad. Today, they will only think that if you say the last one. And yet, I’m not ‘down’ with it, as today’s modern young people say.

When Siri and Google Assistant launched, I tried them out. Once, for some reason, I asked an Android Wear watch, “Is Jim Bowen dead?” to ‘test’ it. Impressively, it duly provided evidence that he was not, at the time. Then, Echo and its robo-voice genie Alexa arrived. 

Yes, my bisexual/swinging relationships with Ms/Mr Siri and Ms/Mr Google* had swiftly faltered – we don’t even exchange Christmas emails anymore – but Alexa seemed fresh and different.

*As a side note to this, you could write a book on the gender politics of choosing to make an AI assistant ‘female’ by default… but maybe it shouldn’t be by me, A Man.

Alexa. Alexa! ALEXA!