Amazon’s Astro Robot Is ‘Beautiful’ In Secret Photos

“Beautiful.”

There was also that statement, suggested on my feed Tuesday when Amazon released it bevy data collection, constant checking materials in a confusing and hostile group. “Amazon robots have now arrived, and I will be forced to admit they are good,” he wrote Bloomberg technical editor Nick Turner, as well as a link to their story for “Alexa on wheels”, called Astro.

“Why not?” I thought. “Why on Earth would you be forced to accept a beauty pageant? Why aren’t you as scared as I am? ”The disconnect between what I feel and this“ beautiful ”feeling didn’t scare me. Turner was not the only one who could feel the sting from this lifeless peak: The co-authors ’agreement that Amazon provided the opportunity to start with his robot seems to be what we should take this tool seriously and see as something we would want in our lives, wandering in our paths, watching the faces of our children, running on the tail of our dogs.

Obviously, there were secret ideas about this turmoil, and a growing choir on Twitter confirmed what I was doing against the Amazon robot. But from the earliest stories, worrying that the device would ruin our lives was a whisper compared to the “Hell no, this is bad” screams in my head and gut. “Didn’t we learn anything?”

My fear is not that Amazon will create a new way to infiltrate our privacy and get rich by doing this, even though I am afraid and offended by them as well. It’s a treat destructive technology it makes me wonder. More and more people fall on the other side of the eternal conflict between security and privacy than I do. That this little eye robot is its own shape, as well as a new aid, anything that divides us. That people — most people — want this.

A few hours after the Amazon incident, my privacy concerns seem to have been confirmed. Women’s box published revealing documents that reveal this: Astro, which will cost $ 1,500 after pricing starting at $ 1,000 for those already selected in the Amazon, is “the first and most important … a monitoring tool that tracks you and everyone who enters your home.” That’s what Amazon means when it does advertises Astro as a “household robot for home monitoring, with Alexa,” that gives you “peace of mind,” whether you’re keeping tabs remotely on a home-bound loved one or just want to check if you turned off the stove. At least, that’s what it promises—one day, perhaps. As a developer who had the chance to toy around with the robot pre-release told Motherboard, “Astro is terrible and will almost certainly throw itself down a flight of stairs if presented the opportunity.”

Amazon, of course, promises that Astro is “designed to protect your privacy” because it allows you to easily “turn off mics, cameras, and motion with one press of a button and use the Astro app to set out of bounds zones to let Astro know where it’s not allowed to go.” This assurance ignores the history of Alexa-enabled devices attack our privacy, of the company’s Ring Cameras (built into Astro) and creating a file of private management center we used to hate our neighbors and send more to the police. It fails to address the possibility that these weapons could be stolen. And it is clear from the obvious fact that Amazon is actively preparing a wide range of self-monitoring systems in our private spaces — like Verge reports, establishing its potential in the future of “mobile computers” is Amazon’s well-known goal. And it is doing this by flooding the site with “beautiful” tools connected to the internet.

What Amazon’s Astro tariffs speak directly to (however) is that most people wouldn’t care about any of the challenges that lie ahead of me and my skeptics. Amazon ranks among the top three “annual Fortune”many admirable companies”List. Last year, a close survey he found that 91% of respondents had a positive opinion on Amazon – higher than any other Big Tech company – and 73% said they would trust the company with their knowledge, second only to Microsoft.

All of this is reflected in real shopping: From January 2020 – almost two years ago – Amazon He said sold “hundreds of millions of Alexa-aided devices, not less than double the number sold last year. lost.

The truth is, my love of privacy is a privilege. I can monitor every room in my house without assistance, and none of my loved ones need to be monitored remotely. I live in an area where crime rates are low. I have expensive computers and smartphones that can do a lot of smart communication (or smart microwaves or a stupid robot). No one, as far as I know, is trying to seduce me or try to hurt me. I am not needs any of these tools to make my life better because my life, as it is now, is better without them.

And yet, I’m a liar: I have a security camera (one for Google’s Nest), which I use to keep my pets away from home. It’s a bit durable and not used all the time, however, I use it. Most importantly, I find out why people need cameras to illuminate the inside and outside of their homes on a regular basis: stress and stress. It can be frustrating to leave town without knowing if your home is safe and secure. Being able to pull food out of your home or living room whenever you want reduces the stress of what’s going on that you can’t control.

I fear, however, that the need for constant vigilance increases our awareness of who we are needs watching all the time – that tragedy is just around the corner, though it isn’t. Voting is frequency he found that Americans believe that crime is more widespread than ever. And we have a security camera reduces the possibility of someone entering your home, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program he found the prevalence of domestic crime has been the lowest since 1985, the first day the agency provided public information.

I am also afraid that taking care of ourselves would also help us to fear other people. As your bell rings at your front porch, everyone passing by becomes suspicious, especially as someone it’s a colored person. It’s not a problem for Amazon or Google, but it does seem to promote or endorse the products that these companies offer. In a time when we are increasing in number we live in our little foam.

Aside from the privacy issues I have with any device connected to the internet – my phones and computers and the Nest camera included – is that Amazon, with the release of Astro, also forces us to choose the type we want to be Do we want to be able to control every room in the house our whenever we want from anywhere, to get some rest, or is this what makes us avoid it? I know how to answer that question, mentally, and I have a good idea of ​​how many people would answer — and the two would be very different. What I am most disappointed with, then, is Amazon forcing us to re-elect to make money. I wish Amazon would give us a chance to deal with the choices we already have instead of just putting new choices in our plates before we know what we are eating. In the end, I wish they had just left us. Wouldn’t that be great?