I’m hot. I’m cold. I’m bored.
In the past, the above necessitated movement for the purposes of adjusting the temperature and agitating the mind to some beneficial end. Now, I simply sit and shout instructions to various instruments of my choosing to better my imminent situation. I have been assured this is to humankind’s advantage. Why get off my dead ass if I can, through voice commands, have whatever perfunctory task I don’t want to get up for completed by a software-controlled vassal?
That got me thinking.
I presume, this allows for better monitoring-think about that folks-and efficiency in menial mental applications such as whether the house is warm enough, or if there’s enough beer in the fridge. Why should I concern myself with the temperate or the contents of the fridge when I can better use my mental faculties for more important matters such as what shows to binge or why we didn’t draft the kid who’s making our local lugs look so bad out on the field of dreams we’re assure matter to our personal well-being?
Such are the matters of importance today.
As we sashay into the future it behooves us to take stock of its many possibilities, such as is the temperature in a range that best utilizes the efficiencies of the furnace/heat pump/electric heat/air conditioner/et al for the purposes of energy savings? If we choose to ignore the program, will it rat us out to the utility which will then charge us a usurper’s fee?
If the fridge alerts us to the unpleasant fact that it’s low on beer and then contacts the app that makes sure we’re never low on beer and has it delivered, will that info also be passed along to both our health and home/auto insurance and adjust our rates accordingly? If I were in the business of gouging, sorry maximizing the cost structures to better align with the behavioral habit of our customers (also known as maximizing shareholder profits), I would.
Everything we do online is monitored and collated and regurgitated back to us, after it is stored and analyzed and sold by our benevolent overseers, so that we may go into deeper debt in the most enjoyable manner, it makes sense that everything we do in any sphere of life be included through spyware conveniently included in our watches, stoves, cars, thermostats, clothes, etc.
This makes us more pliant and amenable to the day when the machines take over, which I’m all for.
I wonder if we ask Siri who’s monitoring us today, if she’d own up?
©2019 David William Pearce
David William Pearce, Writer 