"Ryan Calo, a law professor who co-directs the University of Washington's tech policy lab, said while there are upsides to these technologies, there are also downsides to be considered. One of those risks, he said, is normalizing a feeling that a person is never alone, even in their own home.
Calo told CBC News Network's Andrew Nichols that in this case, he wasn't "all that surprised" to learn the message had been sent.
"When you start to introduce into people's homes something that both has a microphone and is connected to the internet, I feel that that kind of thing is inevitable."
Calo said he believes Amazon's statement that this was a low-probability event, where several different things had to happen around the same time for the message to be sent. But he still thinks we'll see more of these cases as more people choose to bring voice-activated tools into the home.
"Now all of a sudden we are, voluntarily, introducing these products into our home, which create a portal to somewhere else.""
- Date Published:05/25/2018
- Original Publication:CBC News