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The Fear Surrounding Technology

Tech Space

As a technology professional of over 15 years, I can wholeheartedly assure you that your phones, smart devices and televisions are not listening to your conversations.

Well, other than when they are.

But, where do these sensational stories come from; why is it commonly accepted that ads about trampolines or headphones or sunglasses must be "Facebook listening in?" The answer, it turns out, is a good story.

Consider first how far we've come, for a moment. The first iPhone, which preceded even an on-device App Store by over 12 months, released in 2007.

This remarkable new device arguably revolutionized what we keep in our pockets. Fast forward to today and you're able to snap a photo, edit that photo, insert it into a presentation and send that presentation to a client without them being any the wiser you haven't left the lake. To perform the same steps just a decade ago would have required you to haul your laptop and camera at absolute minimum.

So we've come a very long way in a very short time. Change is scary, right? And who knows what sort of information these devices are collecting!

So, perhaps all we're truly dealing with is fear of the unknown in this case.

Lucky for us, the same technology we look sideways at affords us the ability to learn about its secrets, amongst a plethora of other things. Knowledge, thanks to technology, is now more accessible than it has ever been.

Remember how great arguments were before one could simply google the right answer and settle it?

How then do we find ourselves with so much distrust of these tiny, powerful devices imbued with smarts and unthreatening names like "Alexa?"

Well, chiefly it's an underestimate of how powerful targeted marketing has become. The real reason your smart speaker isn't listening in on you is: it simply doesn't need to.

Your advertising data is already chock full of useful information without adding the highlights of your conversation about wanting new sunglasses for those days you create presentations at the lake.

Let's say over breakfast with your family that you mention offhand you'd quite like a fresh pair of shades. There's four of you at the table, and nobody speaks of eyewear again that day. All it would take to trigger an advert for trendy wayfarers is your partner performing a quick amazon search to check the latest summer spectacle prices!

You're then in the classic position of your social media seemingly having read your mind to try and sell you relevant wares.

You see, your ad data doesn't just contain the things you've searched for; it also contains things people you regularly spend time around have shown interest in.

The logistics here, boring as they may be, can't be ignored. Even the age in which we live has limitations on the amount of power you can squeeze out of a computer; processing voice (especially in real-time) is notoriously complex.

To expect even the mighty Amazon to hunt through every word we say for ad-placement gold is beyond the realms of reasonability right now. Might "jacket buyer" be added to your advertising data if you keep asking Siri if it's windy outside?

Absolutely.

Will wearing a Cookie Monster hoodie to enjoy your new smart TV trigger ads for Tickle Me Elmo?

Sadly not.

But, it's a really, really good story to say that it did.

Richard Noble is the founder of Want For Tech, an IT company based in Glasgow.

 

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