![]() ![]() I know that it doesn’t know, but somehow, it definitely knows. Because I’ve spent all day writing this, I have earned zero fitness points and-as if my Amazon Halo has sent electrical signals down into my wrist and up the nerve endings directly into my brain-I feel an overwhelming urge to pause my writing and get moving. ![]() ![]() The overall experience of wearing this thing, in fact, has been one of creeping anxiety. What I’m saying is, maybe machine learning is not a perfect technology for assessing how you sound to other people. When, as an experiment, I read my Halo a local news report in the fake-happy cadence of a TV anchor, it was happy and told me I sounded energetic and authoritative. Probably the most distinctive feature of the Halo is that, unless you press a button to pause it, it uses machine learning to assess every word you speak in order to, as the company puts it, “analyze energy and positivity in a customer’s voice so they can better understand how they may sound to others, helping improve their communication and relationships.” In practice, this meant that when I lost $12 in a Zoom poker hand and reflexively dropped an f-bomb in front of a handful of longtime friends, Amazon Halo’s voice analyzer told me I sounded “angry, astonished, or disgusted.” When I lazed in bed all morning and at one point sang along to Roxy Music’s “Mother of Pearl,” Amazon Halo took back some of my precious points and then informed me that I was coming across as “opinionated” (though that might be more of a commentary on Bryan Ferry). What I didn’t realize initially, though, was that in addition to agreeing to let Amazon anonymize and store my data, I was also giving up my right not to be judged harshly in my lowest moments. When I first strapped this thing on, I knew that in a very real way I was abdicating some sense of privacy. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |