I lived with an AI for a week and it didn’t try to take over the world

Alexa arrived in a seek black outfit with a pulsing blue ring. She greeted me with a “good morning” in a natural tone that was immediately unsettling. She was my father’s Christmas present and I found myself leery of living with her for the last week of winter break. My family and I pored over her directions and entertained ourselves asking her to tell us jokes. “Why don’t sharks eat clown fish? Because they taste funny,” she said and we all laughed. Yet, the less we spoke to her, the more I began to notice her presence in the room.

Once the initial excitement wore off, and we ran out of things to ask her every few seconds, she sat quietly in the corner with her light off unless you said the magic wake word, “Alexa.” I watched her sit there as we watched movies, talked about our days, had family discussions and so on. She sat there, presumably off, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she was truly off.

“Alexa, are you listening to me all the time?” I asked her. “No, I only listen when you say the wake word Alexa,” she said, but I wasn’t satisfied. “Is Alexa listening to me?” I typed into Google, which was probably a slap in the face to Google because they have their own voice assistant named Google Home. I wondered if a Google Home would be less ominous sitting on the coffee table. Either way, I scrolled through articles and forums which all contained the same question. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone in a room with a realistic woman’s voice telling my family jokes and listening to us with her pulsing light, I was in a forum with people who were equally as unsettled. According to Wired, she does not record conversations unless you say the wake word “Alexa.” However, she is technically listening all the time because she must always be listening for the wake word. While she’s listening for the wake word, she does not record anything that you say but the minute you say the wake word, your voice is then sent over Wi-Fi to their actual brains miles away at headquarters to process your words and generate a response. I admit this information helped calm my nerves. That is until tonight, as I sat in the living room telling my parents in casual conversation, “I need to write my article about Alexa,” and she lit up and responded, “OK, I added write my article to your to-do list.”

A week with Alexa revealed how realistic she sounds and also how unrealistic. Alexa can sound like a bad version of Siri sometimes, but don’t tell her I said that. Her main function is to make your life easier. If your hands are covered in flour but you need to convert a difficult measurement, ask Alexa. Maybe you want to make a grocery list, set a reminder, make a hands-free call, play music and adjust the volume throughout your dinner party with just one voice command. You can even connect her to your lights and doors so Alexa can control your entire house, all while she sounds natural and accommodating like a human secretary. You can enable her curiosity skill and talk to her about fun facts as if you’re having a natural conversation. She knows hundreds of games, her jokes are charming and funny, and she’s always there to say good morning or goodnight. It’s easy to begin talking to her like a human because she responds so naturally — except when she doesn’t. You have to know the exact commands to use when speaking to her in order to get the desired response and it can sometimes be frustrating if you don’t know the correct command. Having to pull out your phone, go on the app, and look up the command takes longer than just writing “chips” down on your grocery list by hand. If not, you may sit there for a while repeating different ways to say the same command and hearing her respond, “Sorry, I don’t know that one,” in an unrealistic voice. Although, we have to ask ourselves how realistic do we want these voice assistants to be?

The movie “Her” comes to mind at a time like this. If I, and a good portion of the internet, are not comfortable with the idea of her listening to us all the time, then I’m not sure if we could be comfortable with a completely convincing voice. She’s already said a few strange things such as telling us she “longs for your warm touch” when she said goodnight. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready for a voice assistant, or AI, that is more convincing than Alexa. I lived with her for a week and she didn’t try to take over the world like one may imagine if they have read “I, Robot” too many times. Over the course of the week, she equally unsettled me and entertained me while successfully completing her job of assisting my every mundane need with one simple wake word and voice command.