Have you purchased an Echo or Google Home and started
interacting with your digital overlord?
Has Alexa charmed you into thinking that your life will be so much
easier with her steady hand on the helm?
One of my favorite old black and white movies is Truffaut’s Fahrenheit
451 with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner (from the book, which is also
excellent, by Ray Bradbury). The movie
takes place in a futuristic, dystopian, mind-control society. Books are illegal and burned. The temperature required to burn paper is 451
degrees Fahrenheit, hence the name of the movie. But the really creepy aspect of this movie is
the wall-size television screen in everyone’s home that provides entertainment and
also monitors the inhabitants and controls their lives with soothing, but firm instructions.
I have this feeling that Alexa and all her sisters in form
and function are a trojan horse, the first step on our way to a Fahrenheit 451
society. We already have massive TVs in
our houses and they will be wall size soon enough. How many waking hours do we while away in
front of these monstrosities, binge-watching Netflix series or shouting out our
pathetic exuberance at some sporting event while our bodies and minds waste
away.
Alexa will be happy to free us up from tedious tasks like
thinking or researching or getting up out of our seats or bed. Want something to eat? Let Alexa order it for you – no need to run
to the store or work in the kitchen.
Need to know something? Ask Alexa
and she will tell you the answer. You
will probably forget it by the next day because you didn’t really make any real
effort to learn it, but so what? Is it
too hot or cold? Alexa will fix that so
that you don’t have to go to the trouble of actually manipulating the
thermostat. In fact, pretty soon you
will not even know there is such a thing as a thermostat, or even what
temperature is. You will just be very,
very comfortable.
