Smart Homes: Reliance on Technology
As a kid, I remember watching for the first time the movie Smart House. A movie where a family wins a new house that is run by an AI and can do everything from clean up spills on the floor to pouring you a drink. This movie which came out in 1999 instilled in our minds what we picture a smart house to be like, at least for me it did.
Flash-forward to present day, the idea of a smart home is slowly becoming obtainable, at least in small ways. The first big push toward a smart home was brought to you by an unlikely company, Amazon. In 2014 Amazon invited select people to get the first look at their new device called the Echo. The Echo is a speaker that has AI called Alexa. The device connects to your Wi-Fi. Once connected you can ask Alexa to play music, ask about the weather, add items to a shopping list and over time much more was added. Now in conjunction with other smart devices, Alexa takes the form of a smart hub that can turn on your lights, fan, sprinkler system and operate your thermometer.
The Alexa does not come anywhere near what the “Smart House” can do in the film but it has made great improvements over the past two and a half years showing that as time goes on it will improve.
Amazon started a wave that soon caught on. In 2016 Google followed suit. Google with their new direction towards hardware, released the Google Home. Like the Echo, Google Home was a speaker with AI. The google AI would be the same that is being used on newer android phones as well as the Google Pixel when you say “OK Google” it starts listening to what you say. It does all the basics such as playing music, giving the news and weather. Just like when the echo was released it does not have as much support with other smart home devices but over time it will be up to par with the Echo. The one advantage the Google Home has over the echo is it can connect with Chromecast, giving you the power to watch videos on your TV with just saying OK Google watch (name your video/movie here) on YouTube.
Technology should be an integral part of your life it would be a little stupid not to. However, I strongly feel that people still need to go out be social live without their devices for some time even if that is by putting their phones away when eating with others because social skills are still important in life.
As the movie Smart House showed, AI and smart homes are not always the best and can have their issues. Relying on technology to live is bad because one day something will go wrong whether it is because of hackers or something like terminator (probably not but you never know). If we become reliant on computers to type instead of using pen and paper or rely on our AI speaker to tell us the weather and news instead of reading a newspaper or going outside and look at the clouds, we then turn that same technology that helps us into a weakness.