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FEATUREFriday 8 January 2016
Gadgets around us will keep getting smarter, like it or not
ANICK JESDANUN at understanding what you with them. Doing otherwise — Home security cameras cause you don’t see it?
DAVID HAMILTON want it to do. Or maybe it would be like turning off are getting cheaper and The pending onslaught of
AP Technology Writers retains everything it hears your phone’s location ser- more plentiful, but they’re privacy trade-offs might
Our cars, our homes, our for some other hidden pur- vices, which disables many sometimes insecure them- seem trivial when it comes
appliances and even our pose.You may never know of its most useful features. selves, especially if you set to a talking — and listening
toys: Things around us are for sure. At best, you can The consequences aren’t them up clumsily. There’s — Barbie. But maybe it’s
going to keep getting hope the company keeps restricted to phones and already a website devot- less so when your phone
smarter. In 2016, we’ll en- its promises on privacy. TVs: ed to showing video from knows enough about you
trust even more of our lives More important, you have — Kids will be able to talk cameras with no pass- to remind you it’s time to
and their intimate details to trust that its computer to more toys and get per- words. Though they are leave for an important in-
to machines — not to men- systems are really secure, sonalized, computer-gen- mostly outdoor or business terview (if the alternative
tion the companies that or those promises are sud- erated responses. Does the cameras, one was trained would be losing a shot
run them. denly worthless. That part “don’t talk to strangers” on a baby’s crib, and an- at that job) or your smart
home can really tell you if
This shows Amazon’s Echo, a digital assistant that continually listens for commands such as for a song, a sports score or the weather. you turned off the oven be-
The company says Echo transmits nothing to Amazon’s data centers until you first say “Alexa” or press a button. A blue light also fore leaving for an interna-
comes on to let you know it’s active. tional trip. “The encroach-
ments on our privacy are
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) often self-inflicted in the
sense that we will accept
Are we ready for that? is increasingly difficult to rule apply if the stranger is other in a living room. the trade-off one bit at a
You might, for instance, like guarantee — or believe — the Hello Barbie talking doll — Wearable health devic- time,” says John Palfrey,
the idea of turning on your as hacking becomes rou- or Dino, the dinosaur pow- es will track your heart rate, co-author of “Interop: The
TV with a spoken com- tine. ered by IBM’s Watson artifi- fitness levels and more — Promise and Perils of Highly
mand — no more fumbling And here’s the chief quan- cial-intelligence system? and share achievements Interconnected Systems.
for the remote! But for that dary: Every technologi- — Cars will work with with friends and family. And these trade-offs can
to work, the TV needs to be cal benefit comes with a GPS technology and sen- But slacking off may carry be quite subtle. Techno-
listening all the time, even cost in the form of a threat sors in parking meters, a heavier cost than those logical advances typically
when you’re not watch- to privacy. Yet not pay- roads and home appli- extra holiday pounds, par- offer immediate, tangible
ing. And even when you’re ing that price has its own ances to help route you ticularly if your insurance benefits that, once you’ve
discussing something ex- cost: an inability to par- around traffic and turn on company yanks discounts put enough of them to-
tremely personal, or en- ticipate in some of tech- your living-room lights as for meeting fitness goals. gether, can indeed revo-
gaged in some other ac- nology’s greater achieve- you approach the drive- — Software from Google lutionize daily life. Can you
tivity to which you’d rather ments. Because smart way. But that can also gen- and Facebook will get imagine living your life with-
not invite eavesdroppers. gadgets thrive on data — erate a detailed record of even more refined to help out a smartphone? A few
How much should you wor- data about you and your your whereabouts. you cut through the noise. years from now, you might
ry? Maybe your TV never habits, data about what — Thermostats from Nest That’s great if Facebook goggle at the thought of
records any of your casual large numbers of people and others will get smart- is showing you posts from managing your day with-
conversations. Or maybe do or say or appear to er at conserving energy friends you already inter- out constant advice from
its manufacturer is record- want in particular situations when you’re away. Poten- act the most with, but will Siri or “OK Google.”
ing all that, but just to find — it’s difficult not to share tial burglars might find that a long-lost friend’s plea for As for the risks, they’ll tend
ways to make the TV better pretty much everything information handy. help go unanswered be- to be diffuse, abstract and
often difficult to ascertain
even if you’re paying at-
tention — and most people
won’t. In a study released
Wednesday, the Pew Re-
search Center says about
half of American adults
have no confidence that
they understand what’s
being done with their data,
and about a third are dis-
couraged by the amount
of effort needed to get
that understanding.
In short, convenience usu-
ally wins. Shiny new things
are inherently attractive,
and it takes a while for
some of us to get uneasy
about the extent to which
we may be enabling our
own surveillance.
Humans have made this
bargain with technol-
ogy for some time. When
cameras were invented,
legal scholars debated
how far you can go snap-
ping pictures of people in
public. q
