Alexa voice control should weird us out, says Clive Thompson

CBC Radio | Posted: February 9, 2016 3:26 PM | Last Updated: February 9, 2016

Image | Alexa

Caption: The biggest feature in Amazon's Echo speaker is a voice-recognition system called Alexa that is designed to control Pandora, Amazon Music and Prime Music services as well as give information on news, weather and traffic. (The Associated Press)

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Audio | Q : Alexa voice control should weird us out, says Clive Thompson

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She's ready to help you. She's always listening. She's just waiting for you to call out her name.

Alexa, the voice control feature of Amazon's Echo, is a recent addition to Clive Thompson's home.

The q technology correspondent shares his convenient, if disconcerting, experiences with Alexa and what the increasing normalcy of "parasocial relationships" will mean for our culture.

Clive Thompson on tech. Author and journalist Clive Thompson always takes the red pill. Follow q's whip smart tech correspondent to the frontiers of science and technology — from virtual reality journalism to life on Mars.

Alexa voice control should weird us out, says Clive Thompson

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