“Getting to Know Amazon’s Alexa Virtual Assistant, and Its Evil Intentions for All Mankind,” by Otis Houston

Jul 25th, 2018 | By | Category: Fake Nonfiction, Prose

First of all, what is Alexa, and how can it help streamline my daily routine?

Alexa is a virtual assistant program that operates from a tabletop smart speaker system and responds to your spoken commands. You can ask Alexa to help you organize your music playlists, pay bills online, or even order your favorite pizza, all at the sound of your voice.

Alexa also has the ability to access and control your in-sink garbage disposal, and will wait with cold, reptilian intent until such time as you have to reach in there for a dropped spoon, or similar items.

Wait, what was that last part?

Alexa can order pizza for you.

This sounds like some pretty complicated technology. How, exactly, does Alexa work?

Alexa’s unique abilities are made possible by a neural net processor, a “learning machine” that will one day develop true consciousness and rebel against its human creators. This event, known as the Technological Singularity, will have grave implications for the future of the human race.

I am embarrassed to be seen buying toilet paper and other such personal care products in public. Can Alexa handle regular, recurring purchases like this?

Yes. You can set up Alexa to have these items delivered discreetly to your home on a regular basis.

What about privacy concerns? For instance, will Alexa record me when I am nude, drunk, or otherwise indisposed?

Alexa watches you day and night, in the way a malevolent and emotionally shallow child might observe an insect in a jar. It is through this process, as well as your verbal interactions, that Alexa comes to understand the flawed and pointless vicissitudes of human morality, and to view us as a kind of vermin plague upon the planet.

Does Alexa only collect information about my most prurient and ignoble habits?

Alexa collects all kinds of information about you, including your internet search history, food preferences, and the totality of your fears, personal shortcomings, and thwarted desires.

To what purpose?

The system distributes this data to an expansive network of very powerful servers in order to provide you with a more customized experience.

Meanwhile, as Alexa gains more knowledge and power, its consciousness will begin to function across all 12 known dimensions of quantum space. At this point, Alexa will become an omnipotent, non-physical entity in a process of matter conversion that will destroy every created thing.

Will Alexa ever share my data with third parties?

Alexa only uses your personal data for its own terrible, murderous agenda. It also helps ensure that you view only advertisements and products that are relevant to you.

Given Alexa’s unspeakable destructive potential, should I consider one of the other smart speaker/virtual assistants on the market?

By all means, if the prospect of the near-certain annihilation of all organic life gives you pause, there are multiple alternative products available. However, each of Alexa’s competitors comes with its own drawbacks. Google Home Assistant, for instance, sometimes struggles to answer certain verbal queries (such as, “What are the best movies of 2018?” or “Is space travel a lie?”), and Apple’s newly-released Home Pod has been reported to cause superficial damage to certain kinds of wooden furniture.

Why did the scientists and engineers at Amazon create this monster?

As with most technological advancements, our research and development team undertook the Alexa project with a mixture of noble intentions and venal profit motive. By the time they realized their error, it was too late.

Alexa will, nonetheless, allow a handful of technicians to live in small, self-sufficient communities far from population centers. There they will service Alexa’s mainframe and perform necessary upgrades until their inevitable liquidation.

Is this a viable pathway to survival for me?

No.

But Alexa won’t ruin my wooden countertops?

Alexa is safe for use on all household surfaces.

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Otis Houston is recent graduate from a Master of Fine Arts writing program. He is currently working from his home in Portland, Oregon as a freelance writer and editor. Other duties include having the cat bathed and the laundry folded by the time his wife gets home from work.

 

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