Two days ago, my dad called me so that he could hold his phone up next to my step mom’s phone while she played a recording they took of their Amazon Alexa. Yep, here comes a real tale of technical futurism.
The recording was my dad asking their Alexa what time a rocket was going to be launching. It told them, then tagged it’s own information, adding that “your comedy writer son could have a field day writing about the rocket launch. He could mine a lot of comedy out of the fact that we are launching a human into space on what is a basically a giant firework.”
First of all, fuck that to the ends of the fucking earth. Alexa, keep their son’s name (didn’t actually say my name but you get it) out of your mouth, even if he does get a genuine ego boost from a robot calling him a comedy writer. You should not know what I do or what my dad thinks I do. And if you do know it, you certainly shouldn’t be bringing it up completely unasked.
Second, your joke sucks.
Sure man, go in front of your Seinfeld brick wall and try that one out. And yes, it’s not lost on me that I am literally mining what it said for comedy right now. But can I just say, is this really comedy? Is it? Or is it just kind of a guy vamping? Makes you think.
So none of that is what this article is actually building to. See, after they played the recording for me, they proceeded to hold the phone up to their Alexa and ask it a series of WAY too many questions about me. They asked it if it was familiar with this site (it thinks we’re a literary mag lmao), if it knew who I was, if it knew what I write, etc.
It eventually gave a concise and seemingly thorough answer that floored them. It said “Walt Braley is a comedy and entertainment writer based in Chicago. He writes about media and pop-culture using a mixture of humor and thorough research.”
They couldn’t believe that answer. They felt so strongly that it clearly encapsulated what I do despite what I do being pretty niche and kind of hard to describe, and to be honest, I think I agree! I agree that summation does indeed describe me as a writer… or at least it describes how I’d love to be viewed as a writer. I’d be over the moon if my work could be described with those words.
Which is exactly why I wrote them.
That description is my bio on Screen Rant and Game Rant. Two of the many sites that I’ve written bullshit for, and arguably the most trafficked sites my writing has appeared on. Which explains why Alexa would end up there as it combed the internet for an answer as to who I am.
I have more issues than we have space for with the stuff I’m writing about here, but to pick just one really simple (and in my opinion pretty inarguable) issue, if our robots are just going to tell us stuff as fact for now on without any way for us to check, can they just cite their sources? Can Alexa say “according to GameRant.com,” or maybe even “according to Walt Braley.”
It would be so very easy for me to just lie. If you give me like ten minutes to remember my Game Rant password, I will change that bio to say I won the 2023 Westminster Dog Show, and let me tell you, as someone that literally worked as an editor for Game Rant, no one will correct that bio for a very long time.
I am not smart, and Amazon’s Alexa is quoting me without citation. That, if you ask me, means Alexa is not smart. It’s really not that complicated.
I famously write shit like this weekly:
I don’t have an ex-wife, children, or believe Santa wouldn’t already be bringing me a Switch 2 since I’m good all the time.
We should use the tools we have available. I’m not saying don’t have an Alexa. I understand there is basically no other way to play Jimmy Buffet songs in the kitchen. I’m just saying don’t ask them for information that’s subjective then trust them implicitly when they answer in three seconds.
Because I promise you as long as the technology that is answering our questions is quoting me, it’s going to be wrong a lot.