Imagine a world in the not to distant future - and Siri/Alexis is run completely by humans. Imagine that Siri is run in a call centre type situation, where humans have access to basically any information you need. How would this change or interactions with our devices, and what implications would this have for privacy? Today I thought I would explore the consequences of this Black Mirror type situations.

Your pocket assistant now is a real human, and has real emotions - how will their responses differ from that of a robot? Imagine if you started asking Siri questions about drug rehab, violence, or suicide - as a human with emotions do you think Siri would have an obligation to step in and offer help - and where is the line drawn between the right for privacy and the interest in keeping people safe? What about criminal activity - does Siri have a responsibility to pass on any information about criminal activity to law enforcement, or is user privacy most important?

Although Siri is smart currently, it is still just a programmed robot and so won't have any of these issues - infact there are lists of funny Siri responses, which show how unhuman like Siri is. As time goes on and technology advances, Siri is becoming more smart and human like in her responses.

Because of the human element, Siris emotions could get in the way and could start offering advice and answers which could have dire consequences for the user. Imagine if users started to ask Siri for life advice and relationship advice. In this case should there be any responsibility and liability forced upon Siri?

With technology, there is always the chance of corruption - imagine if there were corrupt/criminals working for Siri. They could gain unsuspecting users trust, and scam them in a number of different ways. Most apps these days have permission to all sorts of things on your device, such as your messages, photos and more - whos to stop a corrupt Siri employee from hacking any of this data. Unfortunately this probably already happens from other apps trying to steal peoples identity from time to time.

A humans right to privacy

From the user end I know that if Siri was a real person it would affect the way I used it (if I used it at all!). It was also make me start to question whether other devices/services are listening in and run by humans as well. Currently humans have a right to privacy, but this might not always be the case. With the recently scandal and fallout of the Facebook data leaking scandal it can be seen that it is becoming harder and harder to keep your data safe.

There has been talk in the past, and speculation that services like Facebook messenger are recording all of our private conversations. This wouldn't come as a complete surprise to me - I am using Facebook less and less these days, but the advertisements are becoming more and more accurate - so where are they getting this data from? Facebook does actually track your web information, even when you aren’t logged in, so this could explain it.

If this was ever found to be true - that Facebook was spying on us there would be a mass exodus from these services. But where would they all go? If Siri/Alexis were run by humans and Messenger was recording our conversations then how could we have private conversations? I think alot of people would move to privacy browsers such as TOR, and look for decentralised communication tools. Who know we might even see a resurgence of the old fashioned telephone!?

Although this is all hypothetical, it is something that could happen in the not too distant future - what are your thoughts on this? How would your relationship with your devices change if you knew there was a real chance that people were listening in to your conversations?

The motivation for this blog came from a new Podcast by Gimlet media I am listening to called Sandra - check it out here