Broken Fix #3: Leaving it to Device Users
The indispensable product with the fundamental flaw…
The number of tasks that Amazon’s virtual assistant performs daily for the average user continues to grow as the company keeps finding more ways to make the AI indispensable to their customers. This increase in utility is coupled with an increase in the number of devices that the average user has in their household. Complicated “smart home” set-ups, involving multiple devices (sometimes using several wake words) are becoming the norm. A user trying to change the wake word to accommodate someone named Alexa (or a similar name) is no longer just dealing with one device; they may need to seriously disrupt an otherwise perfectly tuned smart home system, and even then, there still might be some devices where changing the wake word isn’t possible. In those situations, users are left with no other alternative but to turn off devices, which means losing use of tech they’ve come to depend on.
“Here, you fix it!”
Unfortunately, when Amazon released their virtual assistant with a real name as the default wake word, they dropped all of the responsibility of mitigating the harm it would cause people named Alexa (and similar) into the laps of their product’s users, and those users haven’t been stepping up to the challenge. This should come as no surprise, given the way that Amazon markets the product, and how deeply embedded in its user’s lives the AI has become. They’ve come to rely on established tech routines, and a significant part of that involves having full access to all of their tech’s functions by giving commands to “Alexa”. The arrival of someone whose name makes their devices go off is already an annoyance to them, but the prospect of rearranging their smart home system isn’t nearly as appealing a “fix” as renaming or not addressing the human. As we’ve documented in this site, the reaction of device users in this situation is rarely “how do I make sure this person isn’t dehumanized around my devices,” it’s more akin to “I don’t like how this person in my house / in this show / in this virtual meeting is causing a disruption to my tech!” For Amazon to have expected their users to go out of their way to do the right thing was a serious error on the company’s part, and they should have known better.
Some of the many ways people are using Amazon’s virtual assistant (click to enlarge)
This device user is typical of most in not wanting to change his settings or turn the device off when it gets triggered by someone saying “Alexa” on TV.
By designing it to activate by a real name, Amazon produced an artificial intelligence product with a serious ethical flaw, which they left up to users to fix (by changing the wake word or unplugging devices). Since most find this incompatible with the way they use the product, they aren’t doing it.
Yelling “Alexa!” is now a habit for users:
Amazon’s virtual assistant users shout commands at “Alexa” so many times a day, it’s become a habit for many of them, even in situations that have nothing to do with the AI. No doubt, Amazon can view this as proof of their product’s success, but it’s a terrible outcome for the people who have that name, or one close to it. It’s also a problem because it makes it difficult for users to temporarily change their wake word to something else; they’d have to stop and think each time they gave it a command, which is not something they normally have to do. It’s yet another reason why device users balk at choosing this option around people named Alexa (and similar).
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t:
People named Alexa (and similar) face the same dilemma most places they go: do they speak up and ask device owners to inconvenience themselves by changing settings and turning off devices, or do they simply try to roll with the dehumanizing prospect of losing use of their name instead? The outcome of Amazon’s choice to use their name for their product has meant that no matter which option they take, people named Alexa (and similar) will lose. Here’s a simple example to illustrate why:
Scenario 1 : Person named Alexa is a guest in a house saturated with the AI. Their name keeps triggering the devices. The homeowner doesn’t want to change all of their settings and unplug devices, so they ask the guest to go by a code-name during their visit. The guest is then forced to hear the homeowner giving commands to the name that’s now off-limits to them.
Scenario 2 : Person named Alexa is a guest in a house saturated with the AI. Their name keeps triggering the devices. They ask the homeowner to change their settings and turn off devices, and the homeowner reluctantly agrees to do it, but starts reevaluating if having this person over again in the future is worth the bother of having to mess with their settings and lose use of their tech.
Next: The True Fix