An estimated 120 million cars will be equipped with voice-recognition systems next year, up from 40 million in 2018, according to IHS Markit. Currently, most in-car systems are smartphone-based, but Amazon and Google are also developing embedded devices that can work in cars without being tethered to a phone.
“I would imagine that within five years, the vast majority of new vehicles will have some form of voice recognition.”
So your car will have voice recognition. But what does it entail?
While it may be convenient for cars to know your shopping habits and favorite places, that information can also be used to create targeted audio or visual ads, sell subscription services, or tip off third-party businesses.
Targeted ads in your Internet, your TV, your phone, and now your car. But that's just the beginning:
The most worrisome are incidents in which the devices accidentally record and send conversations to contacts in users’ phones, or inadvertently make large purchases.
Your private conversations are no more (thanks to an accident, of course). So we can expect something similar to the home assistant situation I've written about before, where everything you say is sent to the police - and you can get penalized for it.
But even as governments and corporations begin to address security questions, it’s unclear who will control the data that is collected.
What is clear is it will not be you! The bigger issue, perhaps, is that we've given up control for convenience. What is the problem with remembering your own appointments, choosing your own shopping places instead of being "recommended" while you drive near them, or leaving your house in a proper state instead of relying on an "assistant" ? We've turned to technology to do stuff we've done directly just a while ago, losing our humanity. Who knows what kind of long term effects that's going to have? I mean children who use smartphones a lot end up all kinds of fucked up (archive), and do you really think adults avoid the effects?
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