The Rise of the Smart Hoover … A Helper or A
The Rise of the Smart Hoover … A Helper or A Privacy Threat?
You know that scene from Terminator, where the robots of the world decide that they have had enough of us and decide to take over the world? And the classic “I can’t do that, Dave” scene from 2001, where HAL decides that Dave is endangering that mission and needs to be permanently removed?
And, the one in Red Dwarf, where the vending machines decided to go on strike? Or, even, Talky Toaster:
Well, robots and AI is increasingly becoming part of your home.
A brave new world or 1984?
When I sometimes present at live events, I give a vision of a future where we are spied on for every microsecond of our lives. In a recent presentation, I demo’ed on how toys, cameras, and a whole lot of devices could spy on us:
and that we could all be becoming a slave to the Internet:
And so the Internet has a strange way of find-out things that our governments often struggle with. While I still get letters in the post from my council asking about the people in my home, the social media companies probably know this in great detail and what each of them had for their lunch. In fact, it was Google who mapped our streets, and it was them who scanned our books. And did they ask anyone’s permission for this? Well, they just did it, and then asked for forgiveness.
So, like it or not, the Internet is an increasing part of our lives by the day. Just this week I turned off my beloved DAB (to avoid drops in signal) and moved to Internet Radio:
A spy or a great helper?
And, like it or not, you are carrying around a mobile spying device in your pocket, and everywhere you go can be mapped, along with who you meet and (possibly) what your thoughts are. As a society, though, there are some things that we might think will never be taken over by the Internet, such as your microwave oven or kettle. And, of course, your vacuum cleaner (aka hoover). Think of the information that your vacuum cleaner could provide. Well, the dimensions of your house basically, and its furniture. It could be the ultimate spy in your house, finding out how many people were there, when they had dinner, and when they went to sleep. But will it be able to get upstairs, and if not, will the upstairs robot be able to talk to the downstairs robot?
But, surely it is going to be difficult to link all your data to the data in your vaccum cleaner? Well, think again. Amazon has just made a bid for Roomba — the creators of iRobot — for $1.7 billion, and Amazon are not getting into the dust industry but might be keen to gather precious data from your trusty cleaner.
It is well-known that the iRobot product has seen the linkage of data with smart devices and AI assistants as a core area of development, but the Amazon link will bring this alive. Amazon, too, acquired the Ring doorbell, and Eero (who sell wifi routers). With all these acquisitions, you can see that while Google maps things outside your house, it could be Amazon that knows you and your home better than you do!
With Ring, Amazon is now forming partnerships in the US with law enforcement agencies and even recently admitted that it had shared video footage without a warrant. There are thus some questions about the closeness of their relationship with law enforcement agencies in the development of the Ring doorbell and where there may be special codes that could be used by them in order to gain entry to homes. While this may be acceptable for high-risk crimes, the same methods could easily be used by those who want to steal things from your home. There are very few things that can be kept secret in these types of devices, and secret codes can easily be detected.
Amazon, too, has even been bragging about the data that they collect from the doorbells, and where they said that its doorbell was used 15.8 million times in Halloween. They also promoted a Halloween skin for the doorbells, and scans of kids at doorbells:
Conclusions
But, will Amazon robots be able to climb floors … and will these robots be able to intercommunicate their data? Well, did you know that Daleks can fly:
Here’s a presentation: