Technology that actually saves us time? Alexa, please haud yer wheesht

IHAVE era-defining technology in my living room that is as thick as mince. ‘Alexa, play Penny Lane by the Beatles,’ I tell her and she says she has never heard of it.

‘Alexa, play songs by the Beatles,’ I command and she responds: ‘Playing songs by the New Beatles.’ I don’t know who the New Beatles are and nor do I care to.

‘Alexa, stop,’ I tell her and I am ignored. I persevere. ‘Alexa, quiet!’ ‘Alexa, off!’ ‘Alexa, SHUT UP!’ Still she is subjecting me to music I did not ask for.

I could, of course, have silenced my voice activated music player – which, in case you were wondering, goes by the name Alexa – long before now had I been prepared to activate the stop button with my finger, which functions quite well. I was, after all, right beside her, looming over her actually, bellowing belligerently into her microphone. Using my finger instead would have done the trick.

But you miss the point. This is a voice activated music player and it is supposed to play practically any song in the history of recorded music at my spoken command because that is how clever machines in the second decade of the 21st century have become.

‘Alexa, you are as thick as mince.’ ‘Hmm,’ she tells me, ‘I don’t know that one.’

I share these travails with my incompetent living room apprentice because, in the next few months, you are going to hear a lot about Google software which, you will be asked to believe, is as near as dammit ready to enter service as your PA.

It’s gonna be soooo cool, Scott Huffman, vice-president of engineering for Google Assistant, indicated this week. With a straight face, he went on to assure people the device would save them time by taking tedious tasks off their plates – you know, stuff like ordering in a pizza or buying cinema tickets.

A year from now, Google Assistant could be booking your hair appointment or buying your shopping because – and here’s the bit the eggheads at Google have been working really hard on – it can make phone calls without the person on the other end knowing they are talking to a machine.

Ludicrous

It is, you see, specially programmed to mimic human behaviour.

Would that be similar to the special programming that enables Alexa to recognise voices telling her to play one of the best-known songs by the biggest band of all time – or to wheesht when I tell her?

But perhaps the most ludicrous notion in the development of a virtual PA designed to make phone calls on our behalf is the assumption there will be a real person on the end of the line to fool. The bitter experience of the past 20 years tells us fewer and fewer organisations put real people anywhere near their first line of defence when their telephones ring.

No, first we must waste precious time grappling with their computerised answering service and raging at the madness of having no human to inform that the programmedin menu of options was programmed in by morons.

What part of this experience tells us that having our own computerised call making service will make our lives any more hassle-free?

The reality is that our call making technology will end up speaking to their call taking technology and together they will cook up chaos which could take months to untangle. Several times during our attempts to clear up our virtual PA’s shambles it will suspect us of being hackers and refuse to co-operate. By then we’ll probably have trusted it with our bank details.

That despairing call to Google to please control its monster before it completely shreds our lives will be made by a human. Good luck navigating the menu options.

‘We call this new technology Google Duplex,’ says its chief executive Sundar Pichai. ‘And we need to get the experience right. But, done correctly, we believe this will save time for people and generate value for small businesses.’

Just Say No, kids. New technology, particularly the laboursaving kind, is almost never ‘done correctly’. From programmable lighting to built-in kitchen coffee makers, new technology of the 21st century variety almost invariably does precisely the opposite of what it says on the box – add to workloads, complicate lives, increase stress levels. And still we shovel armfuls of our personal data into machines we don’t understand.

Nostalgia

In some households, Alexa has started cackling like a witch whenever she is asked to do something. I am not making this up. It is like she sees the future. And in my own living room, I am already getting glimpses of it.

A voice on the television need only say ‘election’ or ‘a letter’ or ‘alerted’ and Alexa thinks she is being addressed. How long before she thinks she is being given instructions? How long before she starts acting on them?

The fact is I own a vinyl copy of a Beatles LP which has Penny Lane on it. I could remove it from its sleeve, place it on the turntable and melt in nostalgia at the reassuring crackle of the needle negotiating the grooves to the track’s beginning.

Alexa, I’m seriously considering switching you off. ‘Sorry, I can’t find songs by I’m Seriously Considering Switching You Off in your music library.’