To Echo or Not To Echo

As I've spent the last few weeks expounding on the 'trap' of automation as an economic policy, I've not commented on a few of the things that have been happening in the more immediate world.  I'm not done with the concept, far from it (read up on Techno-Feudalism, O constant reader), but I'll give it a rest this week.

Soft You Now, The Fair Alexa!

Instead, my target this week is all of the things that Amazon has been adding/promoting/pushing through its Echo product.  For those of you that don't keep up with these things, in the last few weeks, Amazon has announced two new additions to the Echo line-up.  In bullet form, they are:

• Amazon Echo Look - Now Alexa has a camera and can see you and recommend clothes and styles that you might like.  At least, that's how it's being marketed.
• Amazon Echo Show - Alexa has a camera AND a 7" screen.  Call up recipes, favorite photos and allow friends and family to 'Drop In' via another Echo Show or the Alexa smartphone app.
• Bonus Echo! Ecobee 4 Thermostat - A smart thermostat with an Echo Dot built in, allowing Alexo to hang out on your wall and complain about how cold it always is in your house.
• Double Bonus Fake Echo Silver

All these new features and functions seem kind of cool and Amazon is doing a great job adding skills and partnering with other companies.  But...

Alexa, In Thy Orisons Be All My Sins Remembered

... I'm against it.  I feel like a Luddite, but gut reaction is that this is just too much Alexa for anyone's good.  Much of this stems from the embedded camera in the Look and Show.  Personally, I have cameras mounted to the outside of my home, cameras on my phone and connected to my game consoles and computers, but I do not have one that is always on inside my home.  I turn the game consoles and computers off when I'm not using them.  Heck, I tape over the cameras on my laptops unless I need to use them.

But with the Echo products, if you cover the camera, then you might as well have bought the version without the camera and saved yourself a few bucks.  The touted functionality only works it the camera can see you and your home.  And if it can see your home then it can SEE your home.  A dab or two of image recognition and suddenly you have a combination of the FBI and a passive-aggressive parent sitting on the shelf:

"Don't you think it's time that you vacuumed your carpets?"

"When was the last time that you got a hair cut?"

"I see that thing in your hand and I know that's not legal in your state!"

I'm mostly fine as long as all it does is listen (I have my Tourette's Syndrome mostly under control).  Looking means that I have to put pants on.  Shave.  Stop picking my nose.  I'm not at all prepared to change my habits for a piece of automation.  Quite the opposite.  I want my automation to enable those habits, not judge me (or market to me) based on them.