Be warned: your at-home voice assistant is doing more than just listening.
What if I told you that smart devices such as your iPhone and Google Assistant aren’t just listening to you, but persuading and manipulating your actions as well? Sounds like the plot to a cheesy 1980’s sci-fi movie right? As ridiculous as this may sound, however, there is a bit of truth behind this bold accusation. Computers, voice assistants, smart TVs; all tools utilized on a day-to-day basis by major corporations such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook in order to mine private user data and manipulate consumer behavior.
Brought to us by the directors of Netflix’s THE GREAT HACK, Persuasion Machines aims to a shed light on the many dangers threatening consumer privacy by immersing users in a multi-user VR experience in which players explore a sterile living room environment filled to the brim with various smart devices designed to weaponize our own data against us. We had a chance to check out this immersive experience while at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and sufficeth to say it left us genuinely unsettled.
The experience began with us standing at the center of a 15 x 15-foot play space complete with a multicolored grid displayed via project mapping. This space perfectly matched the in-headset environment, allowing us to physically walk throughout the space without the need for artificial locomotion. Once immersed inside the digital environment, a home automated system referred to as EVA introduces you to the various smart devices scattered throughout your environment, such as a doorbell, smartphone, thermostat, etc. This is where you begin to learn more about how the long-rumored robot invasion has been secretly underway for years.
Upon approach, each object displayed a digital readout providing additional context in regards to their respective tracking capabilities. During one portion of the experience, a smart thermostat used thermal imaging technology to scan our internal body temperature and compare it with the temperature outside. After completing the analysis, EVA decided that our body heat was too high in relation to the temperature outside and automatically cooled the room down to a comfortable 65-degrees.
Even more unsettling was how the futuristic demonstrated modern technologies growing effect on the media we consume. While walking up to the smart TV, for example, we were immediately greeted to a message informing us that we had been roaming Instagram earlier today and, based on our online activity, there’s a show coming on that we should enjoy. Our digital home assistant was now curating our content, deciding independently what media we should be exposed to.
As the 12-minute demo progressed, EVA became more involved in our activities. Eventually, she asks us to agree to a lengthy list of terms and conditions; much like a real terms and conditions contract, we have no choice but to agree. From here, the experience takes a sudden dramatic turn. A message appears warning us that the system has been hacked and soon the voice of Will.i.am was explaining in detail how major corporations have been abusing our private data for monetary gain. The developers don’t hold back on naming names either; some of the industries worst offenders, including Amazon and Facebook, are thrown into the spotlight as we learn more about how these companies track every inch of our online activity to create individual profiles.
As if that weren’t creepy enough, the experience follows up by explaining how all of this information, now organized into individual reports, can be used to fuel disinformation campaigns. For example, say you Google the signs for a heart attack at 4 in the morning. Google may label you as neurotic which could, in turn, affect what type of content you’re exposed to in the future. Put simply, Google and other organizations involved in mass data collection are putting users into categories based on their content. It’s a dangerous precedent, one that only serves to further isolate online communities.
For more information on Persuasion Machines, visit here.
Feature Image Credit: The Othrs
The post Terrifying VR Living Room Shows How Smart Devices Are Manipulating Us appeared first on VRScout.
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