Ask Alexa? No, hear this Alexa

It started around the holidays. My eyes began to dart involuntarily to call-outs of my name on social media.

"Just ask Alexa," the tweets read. "Designed around your voice for hands-free convenience. Ask Alexa!" No. I ask you - this real Alexa asks you - when did possessing hands become inconvenient?

Amazon has installed Alexa, its voice recognition and natural- language platform, inside more than five million Echo units the company has sold since introducing the microphone-and-speaker device two years ago. When an Echo's microphones hear the name Alexa, the device wakes and records your questions and commands. You can operate any Alexa-enabled device - in your home, office or car - with this "voice-controlled computer in the cloud".

You can use Alexa to order a car service or food delivery, or to book travel. You can also tell Alexa to buy other Amazon products, or to play audiobooks and music. Footnote: If you request Billy Joel's The Downeaster 'Alexa', however, she may stop herself mid-stanza when she hears her name and record you singing instead.

The growing popularity of Alexa means we may scarcely have to talk to a human again. And, on command, she talks back.

Alexa will tell you the solution to maths problems or measurement conversions. Have a general knowledge query? Alexa will read you the first line of the relevant Wikipedia entry.

But why "Alexa"? Alexa is a truncated, feminine form of the masculine Greek name Alexandros, or Alexander, and means defender or, more aptly in this case, helper of man. Amazon's senior vice- president David Limp told Fortune magazine last year that the name was "important" for the "personality that it creates around the persona" of the service.

For Amazon (not coincidentally perhaps, also a female warrior tribe in Greek mythology) to ascribe the feminine gender to its personal assistant platform conforms to that equally ancient stereotype of a deferent subject catering to the needs of her master. But it was the rarity of my name that led Amazon computer scientists to adopt it as the "wake word" for their voice-controlled bot.

As Mr Limp explained, "the phonics of that word and how that word is parsed and the fact that it has a hard consonant with the X in it is important in making sure that it wakes up only when it's asked for". The letter "x" occurs only once among the top 100 US names of the last century, in the masculine form, Alexander. Since 1880, it is estimated that fewer than 100,000 US women have been named Alexa.

Amazon's goal is to establish a pervasive voice-activated consumer network that fits seamlessly into users' lives. In addition to making several of its own gadgets Alexa-compatible, Amazon has licensed other companies to incorporate the platform in their products. Ford will offer Alexa in three automobile models starting this month.

There is a darker side to Alexa. The conversational platform aims to become so natural that we'll barely notice she's listening at all.

Every time an Echo records our voice, Alexa stores the sound file in the cloud. Amazon has said that it "will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us". But, in December, prosecutors in Arkansas subpoenaed a murder suspect's Echo information. It remains to be seen whether courts will force Amazon to release all the data Alexa may have recorded.

Amazon's promise is that Alexa is "always getting smarter". Through big data collection and analytics, she will come to know us in ways we can't even know ourselves. My worry is that she will make this Alexa dumber. The platform offers endless choices, virtual connections and access to a world of information, but what this major-domo of the "Internet of things" may deliver is reductive banter, mindless consumerism and a universe of trivia.

And Alexa may not be the only one adapting. We talk to Alexa in the peremptory tone we reserve for barking at chatbots, snarkily dismissing interlopers in our social media feeds, or frustratedly answering staccato telephone menu trees.

People do not talk to their dog the way they speak to Alexa.

Imperturbably obedient by design, Alexa appears to offer us a new level of control and choice, always on demand. The miracle of convenience allows us to romanticise this unilateralism to operate everything from our light bulbs, security systems, thermostats, music and media with a simple voice command - even as we disengage from people and depersonalise the institutions that enable real connection and collective agency.

We think we're making the robots in our image but perhaps they're making us in theirs. That's what it seems like, if you ask me.

NYTIMES

•The writer is a journalist who writes about capital crimes and the security state.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 19, 2017, with the headline Ask Alexa? No, hear this Alexa. Subscribe