Latest YouTube scare tactic raises just one question
Jun 4, 2018, 6:17 AM
Some people think that smart speakers are the heralds of a dangerous new world in which our devices will become our masters.
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The latest attempt to warn us is a YouTube video (above) showing a Google smart speaker linked to a pellet gun, which is aimed at an apple. So that on the voice command “Activate Gun,” the gun fires, and assassinates the apple.
The buzz you hear after the gun fires is the electric solenoid that pulls the trigger.
Alexander Reben, the robot expert who built the contraption, says it raises fundamental questions about the uses of smart technology.
It raises just one question for me, why would anyone build such a thing — other than to get a quarter of a million YouTube views? Especially the trigger phrase “Activate Gun.” Are you sure it wouldn’t fire if someone blurted out: “I have to hate guns?” or “Jack, the cake’s done?”
And wouldn’t you at least program the speaker to verify the order before firing?
At least the question of responsibility is pretty easy. Rigging a gun using a smart speaker is no different than rigging it using a piece of spring.
If it goes off, you don’t prosecute the company that made the string, you prosecute the idiot who tied it to the trigger.
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